There is as much variety in voices as in faces; and in estimating a person’s general refinement, the voice is perhaps a safer guide than the face; because the quality of the voice is largely a matter of individual training, whereas in reading faces the judgment is warped by the presence of inherited features speaking of traits which have not been modified by individual effort and culture.
Many young men and women live in absolute indifference to the quality of their speaking voice, till one day Cupid arouses them from their unæsthetic slumber with his golden arrows, and makes them eager not only to brush up their hats and improve their personal appearance, but also to modulate their voices into sweet, expressive accents. But the vocal cords, like a violin, can only be made to yield mellow sounds after long practice; hence the usual result of a sudden effort to speak in love’s sweet accents is a ridiculous lover’s falsetto.
“The fate of innumerable girls has been decided by a slight upward or downward curvature of the nose,” says Schopenhauer; and Pascal points out that if Cleopatra’s nose had been but a trifle larger, the whole political geography of this planet might have been different. Owing to the fact that the nose occupies the most prominent part of the face, Professor Kollmann remarks that “the partial or complete loss of the nose causes a greater disfigurement than a much greater fault of conformation in any other part of the face.” And Winckelmann thus bears witness to the importance of the nose as an element of Personal Beauty: “The proof, easy to be understood, of the superiority of shape of the Greeks and the present inhabitants of the Levant lies in the fact that we find among them no flattened noses, which are the greatest disfigurement of the face.”
Yet here again we find that “tastes differ.” Thus we read in Darwin “that the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, ‘for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation’” [note the stamp of Fashion]; that, “with the Tahitians, to be called long-nose is considered as an insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of beauty;” and that “the same holds true with the Malays of Sumatra, the Hottentots, certain Negroes, and the natives of Brazil.” But the ne-plus-ultra of nasal ugliness is found among the Tartars and Esquimaux. “European travellers in Tartary in the Middle Ages,” says Tylor, “described its flat-nosed inhabitants as having no noses at all, but breathing through holes in the face.” And among the Esquimaux, as Mantegazza remarks, a rule can be placed on both the cheeks at once without touching the nose. Flat noses, says Topinard, “are either depressed as a whole, as among Chinese, or only in the lower half, as among Malays. Negroes have both forms.”
The yellow and black races, who naturally have flat noses, consider it fashionable to have them very flat. The same is true with our modern Fashion regarding wasp-waists and feet. But in regard to the face the white races—including even the women—have emancipated themselves from the tyranny of fashionable exaggeration. Hence, though we admire prominent noses, we do not admire them more and more in proportion to their size. On the contrary, every one looks upon the very large Jewish nose as ugly. The reason is that in judging of the face Fashion has been displaced by æsthetic Taste, whose motto is Moderation, and which is based on a knowledge of the cosmic laws of beauty. Savages have Fashion but no Taste. We have both; but Taste is gradually demolishing Fashion, like other relics of barbarism.
Sometimes our estimate of the nose, as of other features, may be influenced by non-æsthetic considerations—by prejudices of race, aristocracy, etc. “In Italy,” says Mantegazza, “we call a long nose aristocratic (especially if it is aquiline) perhaps because conquerors with long noses, Greeks and Romans, have subjected the indigenous small-nosed inhabitants.” But the Italians are not the only people who, if asked to choose between a nose too large or one too small, would ask for the former. And the cause of this preference is suggested very forcibly in these remarks of Grose: “Convex faces, prominent features, and large aquiline noses, though differing much from beauty, still give an air of dignity to their owners; whereas concave faces, flat, snub, or broken noses, always stamp a meanness and vulgarity. The one seems to have passed through the limits of beauty, the other never to have arrived at them.”
The flat, irregular nose of savages and semi-civilised peoples, with its visible nostrils and imperfectly developed bridge, being intermediate between the ape’s nose and our own, we are naturally led to infer that the nose has been gradually developed into the shape now regarded as most perfect by good judges of Beauty. To what are we indebted for this favourable change—to Natural or to Sexual Selection? In other words, is the present perfected shape of the nose of any use to us, or is it purely ornamental?
It appears that both these laws have acted in subtle combination to improve our nasal organ. The nose is a sort of funnel for warming the air on its way to the sensitive lungs. In cold latitudes a long nose would therefore be an advantage favoured by Natural Selection; and it is noteworthy that in general the flat-nosed peoples live in warm climes. There are exceptions, however, notably the Esquimaux, showing that this hypothesis does not entirely cover the facts.
Let us examine, therefore, the second function of the nasal organ. The external nose is a sort of filter for keeping organic impurities out of the lungs. At the entrance of the nostrils there are a number of fine hairs which serve to keep out the dust. If any particles manage to get beyond this first fortress, they are liable to be arrested by the rows of more minute, microscopic hairs, or cilia, which line the mucous membrane and keep up a constant downward movement, by means of which dusty intruders are expelled and the air filtered. Esquimaux living in snowfields, and savages in the forests and grass-carpeted meadows, do not need these filters so much as we do in our dusty cities and along dusty country roads; hence their noses have remained more like those of the arboreal apes, while ours have grown larger, so as to yield a larger surface of sifting hairs and cilia. When we think of the dusty American prairies and the African and Asian deserts, can we wonder, accordingly, that the American Indians, as well as the nomadic Arabs and Jews, have such immense noses? The theory seems fanciful, if not grotesque; but perhaps there is more in it than appears at first sight.
Even if both these hypotheses should prove untenable, there is a third consideration which alone suffices to account for the development of the European nose. The nose has a most important musico-philological function. The language of savages often consists of only a few hundred words, while ours is so complicated that it requires the co-operation of the vocal cords, and the cavities of the mouth and the nose to produce the countless modifications of speech and song which make us listen with so much pleasure to an eloquent speaker or a great singer. The subject is far too complicated with anatomical details to be fully explained here, and the reader must be referred to a full discussion (not from the evolutionary point of view, however) to Professor Georg Hermann von Meyer’s elaborate treatise on The Organs of Speech, chap. iii.
A few points, however, must be noted here. The nasal air-passage, “with its two narrow openings and intermediate greater width, possesses the general form of a resonator, and there can be no doubt but that it has a corresponding influence, and that the tones with which the air passing through it vibrates are strengthened by its resonance. The larger the nasal cavity the more powerful the resonance, and, consequently, the reinforcement experienced by the tone.... In consequence of the peculiarity of the walls of the nasal cavity, it appears that sounds uttered with the nasal resonance, particularly the nasal vowels, are fuller and more ample than the same sounds when strengthened by the resonance of the cavity of the mouth. The general impression of fulness and richness conveyed by the French language arises from its wealth in nasal vowels; and it is for this reason that second-rate tragic actors like to give a nasal resonance to all the vowels in the pathetic speeches of their heroic parts.”
Further, it is of great importance to bear in mind “that the resonance of the nasal cavity also plays a part in the formation of non-nasal articulate sounds,” appearing here as a mere reinforcement of the resonance of the cavity of the mouth, and free from the nasal twang. Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, an infallible way to make our speech sound “nasal” is to keep the air out of the nose by clasping it tightly; whereas if the nasal passage remains open the nasal twang is replaced by an agreeable resonance. What could more forcibly illustrate the importance of a well-developed nose?
Now there are several groups of muscles attached to the lower cartilages of the nose,—parts which are imperfectly developed in apes and negroes. The constant exercise of these, during many generations, in the service of speech, in expressing several emotions, and in heavy breathing, suffice to account, on accepted physiological principles, for the gradual enlargement of the resonant tube which we call the nose.
So much for Natural or Utilitarian Selection. But Sexual Selection or Romantic Love plays also a most important rôle in the development of the nose. The quotations from Pascal and Schopenhauer made at the beginning of this chapter show that the efficacy of Sexual Selection was recognised long before Darwin had coined the term. As soon as a refined æsthetic taste appears, it rejects ugly forms of the nose. It rejects, for instance, open, visible nostrils, because they are a scavenging apparatus, unæsthetic to behold, though the savage, having no taste, is not thus offended. It gives the preference, in the second place, to the long nose, on musical grounds, because its owner has a more sonorous speech. It scorns the snub-nose because of its simian suggestiveness, and dislikes the excessively large and aquiline nose because it is an exaggerated form, which has passed beyond the delicate dimensions and subtle curves of beauty.
This checking of excessive development in the direction at first prescribed by the cosmic laws of beauty is indeed one of the main functions of Sexual Selection, without which our mouths would gradually become too small, our eyes and noses too large, our foreheads too high, our hair too scant, etc.
Why, for instance, have the Jews such large noses compared with the Greeks? Evidently because Taste—which, though commonly associated with Romantic Love, may, in a highly æsthetic nation, act independently of it—did not restrain the excessive development of the Jewish nose. The ancient Hebrews were not an æsthetic nation, like the Greeks. The finest works of sculpture ever created were made by the Greeks, while the Hebrews practically had no sculpture at all—not even such works as were produced by Assyrians and Egyptians. And if any further proof were needed of the statement that the ancient Hebrews had little taste for beauty it might be found in the fact that Solomon, esteemed a great judge of feminine charms, compares his love’s nose to “the tower of Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus.”
The admission which I have just made that there may be a sort of æsthetic selection independent of real Romantic Love, does not militate against the general thesis of this book: that Love is the cause of Beauty, as Beauty is the cause of Love. For though the Greek artists knew what the shape and size of a beautiful nose should be, there are cogent reasons for believing that “Greek noses” were rare even among the ancient Greeks, thanks to their habit of sacrificing Romantic Love to the dragon chaperon. Hear what Ruskin has to say, in his Aratra Pentelici, about the Greek features in general: “Will you look again at the series of coins of the best time of Greek art which I have just set before you? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful? Certainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Demeters are not. The Siren and Arethusa have well-formed and regular features; but I am quite sure that if you look at them without prejudice, you will think neither reaches even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Venus Urania suggests at first the idea of a very charming person, but you will find there is no real depth nor sweetness in the contours, looked at closely. And remember, these are chosen examples; the best I can find of art current in Greece at the great time; and even if I were to take the celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not one of them excels the Venus of Melos; and she, as I have already asserted in The Queen of the Air, has nothing notable in feature except dignity and simplicity. Of Athena I do not know one authentic type of great beauty; but the intense ugliness which the Greeks could tolerate in their symbolism of her will be convincingly proved to you by the coin represented in Plate VI. You need only look at two or three vases of the best time to assure yourselves that beauty of feature was, in popular art, not only unattained, but unattempted; and finally—and this you may accept as a conclusive proof of the Greek insensitiveness to the most subtle beauty—there is little evidence, even in their literature, and none in their art, of their having ever perceived any beauty in infancy or early childhood.”
Nevertheless, it was to the contours of childhood that the Greek artists apparently went for their ideal of the divine nose. Greek beauty was youthful masculine beauty; and the “Greek nose” is one which not only is straight in itself, but forms a straight line with the forehead. In other words, there is no hollow at the root of the nose, where it meets the forehead. Now the absence of this cavity is characteristic of youth, and is owing to the imperfect development of the brain cavities. Later in life these cavities bulge forwards and produce the hollow, which, therefore, is an indication of superior cranial development and higher intellectual powers. Hence, as Professor Kollmann suggests, the object of the Greek artists in making the nose of their deities form a straight line with the forehead, was probably to give them the stamp of eternal youth; which would thus appear to have been considered a more important attribute even than the expression of superior masculine intellectual power, which we associate with the hollow at the junction of nose and forehead, and for which reason we do not admire it in women if too pronounced. Nevertheless, even in women the cosmic laws of Beauty call for a gentle curve instead of a perfectly straight line; but the more subtle the curve the greater is its beauty; whereas the nose itself may be perfectly straight on its upper edge, because it forms a dividing line of the face into two symmetric halves, and by its contrasting straightness heightens the beauty of the surrounding facial curves.
To sum up: the Greeks admiration of such features as are naturally associated with youthful masculine beauty no doubt led him, in choosing a wife, to give the preference to similar features, including the “Greek” nose. Yet in the absence of opportunities for courtship, Sexual Selection could not operate very extensively; hence it is probable that ungainly noses, though not so extravagant as among the Semitic races, were common enough in Greece as in Rome. In the Dark Ages hideous noses must have prevailed everywhere, as might be inferred from the facts that Romantic Love was unknown, and physical beauty looked on as a sinful possession, even if the painted and sculptured portraits did not prove it to our eyes in most instances.
Regarding modern noses it may be said that the nose is such a prominent feature that more has been done for its improvement, through the agency of Love or Sexual Selection, than for the mouth or any other feature, excepting the eye. The average Englishman’s nose of to-day, for example, is a tolerably shapely organ, and yet his ancestors were not exactly distinguished for nasal beauty, according to a close observer and student of portraiture, Mr. G. A. Simcox, who remarks that “sometimes both Danes and Saxons had their fair proportions of snub-noses and pug-noses, but when they escaped that catastrophe the Danish nose tended to be a beak (rather a hawk’s beak than an eagle’s), while the Saxon nose tends to be a proboscis.”
Yet even at this date perfect noses are rare, and it is easy to see why. In the first place, it takes many generations to wipe out entirely the ugliness inherited from our unæsthetic ancestors; secondly, Romantic Love, based on æsthetic admiration, is still very commonly ignored in the marriage market in favour of considerations of rank and wealth; and thirdly, a lover, infatuated by his sweetheart’s fascinating eyes, is apt to overlook her large nose or mouth—till after the honeymoon.
Inasmuch as the civilised races of Europe have so long been indifferent to their ugly noses, we can hardly wonder that barbarians should not only disregard their nasal caricatures, but even exaggerate their grotesqueness deliberately. We have already seen how certain tribes habitually flatten their already flat noses. Moreover, “in all quarters of the world the septum, and more rarely the wings, of the nose are pierced; rings, sticks, feathers, and other ornaments being inserted into the holes.” “In Persia one still finds the nose-ring through one side of a woman’s nostril;” and Professor Flower states that such rings are often worn by female servants who accompany English families returning from India.
Captain Cook, in the account of his first voyage, says of the east-coast Australians: “Their principal ornament is the bone which they thrust through the cartilage which divides the nostrils from each other.... As this bone is as thick as a man’s finger, and between five and six inches long, it reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both the nostrils that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath, and snuffle so when they attempt to speak that they are scarcely intelligible even to each other.”
This last sentence bears out our assertion regarding the philological or conversational importance of the nose. And there is another lesson to be learned from these barbarian mutilations of the nose. If Huns, Tahitians, and Hottentots are able to make their noses as delightfully ugly as they please, why should not we utilise the plastic character of the nasal cartilages for beautifying ourselves? Says a specialist: “Much can be done by an ingenious surgeon in restoration and improvement. A nose that is too flat can be raised, one with unequal apertures can be modified, one too thin can be expanded. Cosmetic surgery is rich in devices here, all of which are very available in children and young persons, less so when years have hardened and stiffened the cartilages and bones.”
Thus may Cupid employ a medical artist as an assistant in his efforts at improving the physical beauty of mankind. Needless to add that only a first-class surgeon should ever be allowed to meddle with the features.
Cosmetic surgery has already reached such perfection that it can even make “a good, living, fleshly nose. It will transplant you one from the arm or the forehead, Roman or Grecian, à volonté; it will graft it adroitly into the middle of the face, with two regular nostrils and a handsome bridge; and it will almost challenge Nature herself to improve on the model” (Brinton and Napheys).
Medical men are daily complaining in a more clamorous chorus that their profession is overcrowded. Why don’t some of them in every city and town make a specialty of cosmetic surgery and hygienic advice? Why leave this remunerative field entirely in the hands of dangerous quacks who alone have enterprise and sense enough to advertise?
As illustrations of what may be done in this direction, two points may be noted. A French surgeon, Dr. Cid, noticed that persons who wear eyeglasses are apt to have long and thin noses. The thought occurred to him that this might be due to the compression of the arteries which carry blood to the nose, by the springs of the glasses; so he constructed a special apparatus for compressing these arteries, and by attaching it to a young girl’s large and fleshy nose, succeeded in reducing its size. Why should people worry themselves and frighten others with ugly noses when they can be so easily improved?
The second point is still more simple. It is important that the nose should occupy exactly the middle of the face, so as to secure bilateral symmetry. Yet Welcker, who made a number of accurate observations on skulls, plaster casts of the dead, as well as on the living countenance, noted that perfect symmetry is very rarely found. The obliqueness is sometimes at the root, sometimes at the tip of the nose, and the cause of the deviation from a straight line is attributed to the habit most persons have of sleeping exclusively on one side,—a practice which is also objectionable on other grounds. Mantegazza, however, suggests that, as he has found the deviation almost always toward the right side, it may be due to our habit of always taking our handkerchief in the right hand; and the same view is held by Drs. Brinton and Napheys. So that we have here an additional argument in favour of ambidexterity.
The New York Medical and Surgical Reporter for November 1, 1884, prints a lecture by Dr. J. B. Roberts on “The Cure of Crooked Noses by a New Method,” which, as it is not conspicuous and hardly leaves a scar, may be commended to the attention of those afflicted with nasal deformities. The pin method, he says, is applicable “even to those slight deformities whose chief annoyance is an æsthetic and cosmetic one. I leave the pins in position for about two weeks.”
Red noses, if due to exposure, can be readily whitened by one of the methods to be discussed in the chapter on the complexion. If due to disease, they call for medical treatment; if to intemperance or tight lacing, moral and æsthetic reform is the only possible cure.
Owing to its tendency toward unsightly redness and malformation, the nose is very apt to be looked at from a comic point of view. Wits and caricaturists fix on it habitually for their nefarious purposes, as if it were a sort of facial clown. Indeed, ninety-nine persons in a hundred, if questioned regarding the functions of the nose, would know no answer but this: that it is sometimes ornamental, and is remotely connected with the “almost useless” sense of smell.
We have seen, however, that besides being ornamental per se, the nose plays a most important æsthetic—as well as utilitarian—rôle in giving sonority and variety to human speech; and that it is, further, of great use as an apparatus for warming, moistening, and filtering the air before it enters the lungs. Hence the importance of nose-breathing. Professor Reclam states that city people at the age of thirty usually have a whole gramme of calcareous dust in their lungs, which they can never again get rid of, and which may at any time engender dangerous disease. This is one of the bad results of mouth-breathing, but by no means the only one. “The continued irritation from dry, cold, and unfiltered air upon the mucous membrane of the upper air tract soon results,” says Dr. T. R. French, “in the establishment of catarrhal inflammation, the parts most affected being the tongue, pharynx, and larynx.... The habit of breathing through the mouth interferes with general nutrition. The subjects of this habit are usually anæmic, spare, and dyspeptic.”
That mouth-breathing at night leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth and leads to snoring, thus interfering with refreshing sleep, has already been stated. It also injures the teeth and gums by exposing them all night to the dry air. And in the daytime it compels one to keep the mouth wide open, which imparts a rustic if not semi-idiotic expression to the face. Moreover, think of the filthy dust you swallow in walking along the street with your mouth open. However, it is useless to advise people on such matters. An attempt is made for a day or two to reform, and then—the whole matter is forgotten. These points are therefore noted here not with any missionary intentions, but merely for their scientific interest.
We come now to the fourth important function of the nose—the sense of smell. What has this to do with Personal Beauty? A great deal. In the first place, is not the flower-like fragrance of a lovely maiden a personal charm that has been sung of by a thousand poets, of all times? “The fragrant bosom of Andromache and of Aphrodite finds a place in Homer’s poetry,” as Professor Bain remarks; and an eccentric German professor, Dr. Jäger of Stuttgart, even wrote a book a few years ago on the Discovery of the Soul, in which he endeavoured to prove that the whole mystery of Love lies in the intoxicating personal perfumes.
It is not with such fancies, however, that we are concerned here. It can be shown on purely scientific grounds that the cause of Personal Beauty would gain an immense advantage if people would train and refine their olfactory nerves systematically, as they do their eyes and ears. Unfortunately, Kant’s absurd notion, expressed a century ago, that it is not worth while to cultivate the sense of smell, has been countenanced to the present day by the erroneous views held by the leading men of science, including Darwin, who wrote that “the sense of smell is of extremely slight service” to man.
In an article on the “Gastronomic Value of Odours,” which appeared in the Contemporary Review for November 1886, I pointed out that this under-valuation of the sense of smell is explained by the fact that the sense of taste has hitherto been credited with all the countless flavours inherent in food, whereas, in fact, taste includes only four sensations of gastronomic value—sweet, sour, bitter, and saline, all other “flavours” being in reality odours; as is proved by the fact that by clasping the nose we cannot distinguish between a lime and a lemon, different kinds of confectionery, of cheese, of nuts, of meat, etc.
Now it is well known that most people show a most amazing tolerance to insipid, badly-cooked food, gulping it down as rapidly as possible; and why? Simply because they do not know that in order to enjoy our meals we must eat slowly, and, while masticating, continually exhale the aroma-laden air through the nose (mind, not inhale but exhale). This is what epicures do unconsciously; and look at the results! No dyspepsia, no anæmia and sickly pallor, no walking skeletons;—and surely a slight embonpoint is preferable to leanness from the point of view of Personal Beauty.
If this gastronomic secret were generally known, people would insist on having better cooked food; dyspepsia, and leanness, and a thousand infirmities hostile to Beauty would disappear, and in course of time everybody would be as sleek and handsome and rosy-cheeked as a professional epicure.
Nor is this the only way in which refinement of the sense of smell would benefit Personal Beauty. In consequence of the criminally superstitious dread of night air, the atmosphere in most bedrooms is as foul, compared to fresh air, as a street puddle after a shower compared to a mountain brook. I have seen well-dressed persons in America and Italy take into their mouths the shamefully filthy and disease-soaked banknotes current in those countries; and I have seen others shudder at this sight who, if their smell were as refined as their sight, would have shuddered equally at the foul air in their bedrooms, which diminishes their vital energy and working power by one-half. Architects, of course, will make no provision for proper ventilation as long as they are not compelled to do so. Why should they? They don’t even care, in building a theatre, how many hundreds of people will some day be burnt in it, in consequence of their neglect of the simplest precautions for exit.
One more important consideration. When you leave the city for a few weeks everybody will exclaim on your return, “Why, how well you look! where have you been?” But wherein lies this cosmetic magic of country air? Not in its oxygen, for it has been proved, by accurate chemical tests, that in regard to the quantity of oxygen there is not the slightest difference between city and country air. What, then, is the secret?
I am convinced, from numerous experiments, that the value of country air lies partly in its tonic fragrance, partly in the absence of depressing, foul odours. The great cosmetic and hygienic value of deep-breathing has been proved in the chapter on the Chest. Now the tonic value of fragrant meadow or forest air lies in this—that it causes us involuntarily to breathe deeply, in order to drink in as many mouthfuls of this luscious aerial Tokay as possible: whereas in the city the air is—well, say unfragrant and uninviting; and the constant fear of gulping down a pint of deadly sewer gas discourages deep breathing. The general pallor and nervousness of New York people have often been noted. The cause is obvious. New York has the dirtiest streets of any city in the world, except Constantinople and Canton; and, moreover, it is surrounded by oil-refineries, which sometimes for days poison the whole city with the stifling fumes of petroleum, so that one hardly dares to breathe at all. No wonder that, by universal consent, there is more Fashion than Beauty in New York. And no wonder that it is becoming more and more customary, for all who can afford it, to spend six to eight months of the year in the country.
It has been stated already that, anatomically considered, the forehead is not a part of the face but of the cranium. From an artistic and popular point of view, however, the forehead is a part of the face, and a most important one. Modern taste fully endorses the ancient law of facial proportion, which makes the height of the forehead equal to the length of the nose, and to the distance from the tip of the nose to the tip of the chin. “Foreheads villainous low” are objectionable, because associated with a vulgar unintellectual type of man, and too vividly suggestive of our simian ancestors. Foreheads abnormally high, though preferable to the other extreme, displease, because they violate the law of facial proportion. We excuse them in men, because they are commonly expressive of intellectual power. But in women a high forehead is always objectionable, because it gives them a masculine appearance. Hence Romantic Love, which cannot exist without sexual contrasts, and which aims at making woman a perfect embodiment of the laws of Beauty, eliminates girls with too high foreheads. Yet at the command of Fashion thousands of maidens deliberately prevent men from falling in love with them by combing back their hair and giving their foreheads a masculine appearance, instead of coyly hiding it under a fringe or “bang.”
The fact that the feminine forehead, though more perpendicular than the masculine at the lower part, slants backward in its upper part in a more pronounced angle, is another reason why women should cover up this part of their forehead, which Sexual Selection has not yet succeeded in moulding into perfect shape. For the receding forehead is universally recognised as a sign of inferior culture. Everybody knows what is meant by Camper’s facial angle, which is formed by a horizontal line drawn from the opening of the ear to the nasal spine, and a perpendicular line touching the most prominent parts of the forehead and front teeth. In adult Europeans Camper’s angle rarely exceeds 85 degrees. The average in the Caucasian race is 80°; in the yellow races 75°; in the negro 60° to 70°; in the gorilla 31°. In antique Greek heads the angle is sometimes over 90°. Says Camper: “If I cause the facial line to fall in front, I have an antique head; if I incline it backwards, I have the head of a negro; if I cause it to incline still further, I have the head of a monkey; inclined still more, I have that of a dog, and, lastly, that of a goose.”
It appears, however, that this angle has more value as a test of beauty than as an absolute gauge of intellect. Generally speaking, there is no doubt a correlation between a bulging forehead and a superior intellect; but individual exceptions to this rule are not infrequent. Nor is it at all difficult to account for them. For intellectual power does not depend so much on the size and shape of the skull as on the convoluted structure of the brain.
Our brain consists of two kinds of matter—the white, which is inside, and the gray, which covers it. The white substance is a complicated telegraphic network for conveying messages which are sent from the external gray cells. It has been proved, by comparing the brains of man and various animals, that the amount of intelligence depends not so much on the absolute size of the brain, as on the abundance of this gray matter. And, what is of extreme importance from a cosmetic point of view, the gray cells are increased in number, not by an addition to the absolute size or circumference of the brain, but by a system of furrows and convolutions which increase the surface lining of the brain without enlarging its visible mass. For the benefit of those who have never seen a human brain, it may be very roughly compared to the convoluted kernel of an English walnut.
Wherein lies the æsthetic significance of this mode of cerebral evolution? It prevents our head from becoming too large. Have you ever considered why infants appear so ugly to every one but their mothers? One of the principal reasons is that their heads are twice as large in proportion to the rest of the body as those of adults. A child’s stature is equal to four times the height of its head, an adult’s to eight heads. If our heads continued to grow larger as our minds expanded, from generation to generation, all the proportions of human stature would ultimately be violated. But thanks to the peculiar mode of cerebral evolution just described, Romantic Love may continue to “select” in accordance with our present standards of beauty, without thereby favouring the survival of lower intellectual types.
This view of the question also solves a difficulty which has staggered even such a leading evolutionist as Mr. Wallace, viz., the fact that the oldest prehistoric skulls that have been found “surpass the average of modern European skulls in capacity.” But if it is the easiest thing in the world to find an ordinary stupid man in our streets with a larger skull than that of many a clever brain-worker, why should we attach so much importance to those prehistoric skulls? Had their brains been examined, they would doubtless have been found as scantily furrowed as those of a big-headed modern anarchist.
That the intellectual powers are to a large extent independent of the particular conformation of the skull is shown further by the circumstance that so many savage tribes have for centuries followed the fashion of artificially shaping their heads, without any apparent effect on their minds. Man’s brain incites him, as Topinard remarks, “to the noblest deeds, as well as to the most ridiculous practices, such as cutting off the little finger, scorching the soles of the feet, extracting the front teeth, or deforming the head because others have done so before him.” But of all silly Fashions hostile to Beauty, that of deforming the head has found the largest number of followers—always excepting, of course, the modern Wasp-Waist Mania.
Deformed skulls have been found in the Caucasus, the Crimea, Hungary, Silesia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, in Polynesia, in different parts of Asia, etc. “But the classic country in which these deformations are found is America,” says Topinard. “M. Gosse has described sixteen species of artificial deformation, ten of which were in American skulls.” “Sometimes the infant was fastened on a plank or a sort of cradle with leather straps; or they applied pieces of clay, pressing them down with small boards on the forehead, the vertex, and the occiput.... Sometimes the head was kneaded with the hands or knees, or, the infant being laid on the back, the elbow was pressed on the forehead. Circular bands were sometimes employed to support the sides of the head.”
“Many American Indians,” says Darwin, “are known to admire a head so extremely flattened as to appear to us idiotic. The natives of the north-western coast compress the head into a pointed cone;” while the inhabitants of Arakhan “admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in order to produce it, they fasten a plate of lead on the head of the new-born children.”
“The genuine Turkish skull is of the broad Tartar form,” says Mr. Tylor, “while the nations of Greece and Asia Minor have oval skulls, which gives the reason why at Constantinople it became the fashion to mould the babies’ skulls round, so that they grew up with the broad head of the conquering race. Relics of such barbarism linger on in the midst of civilisation, and not long ago a French physician surprised the world by the fact that nurses in Normandy were still giving the children’s heads a sugar-loaf shape by bandages and a tight cap, while in Brittany they preferred to press it round. No doubt they are doing so to this day.”
“Failure properly to mould the cranium of her offspring,” says Bancroft, “gives to the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their young companions, so despotic is fashion.”
Food for thought will also be found in these remarks by Darwin. Ethnologists believe, he says, “that the skull is modified by the kind of cradle in which infants sleep;” and Schaffhausen is convinced that “in certain trades, such as that of a shoemaker, where the head is habitually held forward, the forehead becomes more round and prominent.” If this is true, then we have one reason, at least, why authors have such large foreheads.
Wrinkles in the face are signs of advanced age, or disease, or habits of profound meditation, or frequent indulgence in frowning and grief. The wrinkles on a thinker’s forehead do not arouse our disapproval, because they are often eloquent of genius, which excuses a slight sacrifice of the smoothness of skin that belongs to perfect Beauty. In women, however, we apply a pure and strict æsthetic standard, wherefore all wrinkles are regarded as regrettable inroads on Personal Beauty. Old women, of course, form an exception, because in them we no longer look for youthful Beauty, and are therefore gratified at the sight of wrinkles and folds as stereotyped forms of expression bespeaking a life rich in experiences, and associated with the veneration due to old age. Such wrinkles are characteristic but not beautiful; and it may be stated, by the way, that Alison’s whole book on Taste is vitiated by the ever-recurring argument in which he forgets that we may take a personal and even an artistic interest in a thing which is characteristic without being beautiful.
In youth, while the skin is firm and elastic, the wrinkles on the forehead or around the eyes, caused by a frown or smile, pass away, leaving no more trace than the ripples on the surface of a lake. With advancing age the skin becomes looser and less elastic, so that frequent repetition of those movements which produce a fold in the skin finally leaves an indelible mark on the furrowed countenance. Woman’s skin, being commonly better “padded” with fat than man’s, is not so liable to wrinkles, provided attention is paid to the laws of health. Mantegazza suggests that the simplest antidote for wrinkles would be to distend the folded skin again by fattening up. The daily use of good soap and slight friction helps to ward off wrinkles by keeping the facial muscles toned up and the skin elastic.
The (voluntary) mobility of the skin of the forehead, to which we owe our wrinkles, affords an interesting illustration of the way in which facial muscles, once “useful,” have been modified for mere purposes of expression. “Many monkeys have, and frequently use, the power of largely moving their scalps up and down.” This may be of use in shaking off leaves, flies, rain, etc. But man, with his covered head, needs no such protection; hence most of us have lost the power of moving our scalps. A correspondent wrote to Darwin, however, of a youth who could pitch several heavy books from his head by the movement of the scalp alone; and many other similar cases are on record, attesting our simian relationship. But lower down on the forehead, our skin has universally retained the power of movement, as shown in frowning and the expression of various emotions.
At first sight it is somewhat difficult to understand why meditation should wrinkle the skin; but Darwin explains it by concluding that frowning (which, oft repeated, results in wrinkles) “is not the expression of simple reflection, however profound, or of attention, however close, but of something difficult or displeasing encountered in a train of thought or in action. Deep reflection can, however, seldom be long carried on without some difficulty, so that it will generally be accompanied by a frown.”
Fashionable women sometimes endeavour (unsuccessfully) to distend the skin and remove wrinkles by pasting court-plaster on certain spots in the face. But the repulsive fashion of wearing patches of court-plaster all over the face as an ornament (“beauty-spots!”), doubtless had its origin in the desire of some aristocratic dame to conceal pimples or other skin blemishes. At one time women even submitted to the fashion of pasting on the face and bosom paper flies, fleas, and other loathsome creatures.
The African monkeys who held an indignation meeting when they first heard of Darwin’s theory of the descent of man, had probably just been reading a history of human Fashions.
“The charm of colour, especially in the intricate infinities of human flesh, is so mysterious and fascinating, that some almost measure a painter’s merit by his success in dealing with it,” says Hegel; and again: “Man is the only animal that has flesh in its display of the infinities of colour.” “No loveliness of colour, even of the humming birds or the birds of Paradise, is living, is glowing with its own life, but shines with the lustre of light reflected, and its charm is from without and not from within” (Æsthetics, Kedney’s edition).
For a metaphysician, trained to scornfully ignore facts, the difference between man and animals is in these sentences pointed out with commendable insight. Regard for scientific accuracy, it is true, compels us to qualify Hegel’s generalisation, for not only have monkeys bare coloured patches in their faces, and elsewhere, which are subject to changes, but the plumage of birds, too, is dulled by ill-health and brightened by health, reaching its greatest brilliancy in the season of Courtship, thus showing a connection between internal states and external appearances. Nevertheless, these correspondences in animals are transient and crude; and man is the only being whose nude skin is sufficiently delicate and transparent to indicate the minute changes in the blood’s circulation brought about by various phases of pleasure and pain.
To understand the exact nature of these tints of the complexion, which are so greatly admired—though different nations, as usual, have different standards of “taste”—it is necessary to bear in mind a few simple facts of microscopic anatomy.
To put the matter graphically, it may be said that our body wears two tight-fitting physiological coats, called the epidermis or overskin, and the cutis or underskin.
The overskin is not simple, but consists of an outside layer of horny cells, such as are removed by the razor on shaving, and an inside mucous layer, as seen on the lips, which have no horny covering.
The underskin contains nerves, fat cells, hairbulbs, and numerous blood-vessels, some as fine as a hair, all embedded in a soft, elastic network of connective tissue.
The overskin has none of these blood-vessels; but as it is very delicate and transparent, it allows the colour of the blood to be seen as through a veil. In the extremely blond races of the North nothing but the blood can be seen through this veil; but in the coloured races the lower or mucous layer of the overskin contains a number of black, brown, or yellowish pigment cells. The colours of these cells blend with that of the blood, thus producing, according to their number and depth of coloration, the brunette, black, yellow, or red complexion. The palm of the negro’s hand is whiter than the rest of his body, because there the horny epidermis is so thick that the black pigmentary matter cannot be seen through it. And the reason why every negro is born to blush unseen is because the pigmentary matter in his skin is so deep and abundant that it neutralises the colour of the blood.
Now, why do the races of various countries differ so greatly in the colour of their skin? This is the most vexed and difficult question in anthropology, on which there are almost as many opinions as writers.
The oldest and most obvious theory is that the sun is responsible for dark complexions. Are not those parts of our body which are constantly exposed to sunlight—the hands, face, and neck—darker than the rest of the body? and does not this colour become darker still if we spend a few weeks in the country or make a trip across the Atlantic? Do we not find in Europe, as we pass from the sunny South to the cloudy North, that complexion, hair, and eyes grow gradually lighter? And not only are the Spaniards and Italians darker than the Germans, but the South Germans are darker than the North Germans, and the Swedes and Norwegians lighter still than the Prussians.
The same holds true not only of South America as compared to North America, but of the southern United States compared to the northern. It also holds true of the East, where, as Waitz tells us, “The Chinese from Peking to Canton show every shade from a light to a dark-copper colour, while in the Arabians, from the desert down to Yemen, we find every gradation from olive colour to black.” Moreover, aristocratic ladies in Japan and China are almost or quite white, whereas the labouring classes, as with us, are of a darker tint.
These and numerous similar facts, taken in connection with the circumstance that the blackest of all races lives in the hottest continent, and that Jews may be found of all colours according to the country they inhabit, lead almost irresistibly to the conclusion that it is the sun who paints the complexion dark.
Nevertheless there are numerous and striking exceptions to the rule that the warmer the climate the darker the complexion. To obviate this difficulty, Heusinger in 1829, Jarrold in 1838, and others after them, have endeavoured to show that the moisture and altitude, as well as the direct action of the sun, had to be taken into consideration. But since “D’Orbigny in South America, and Livingstone in Africa, arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions with respect to dampness and dryness,” Darwin excogitated the theory (which, he subsequently found, had already been advanced in 1813 by Dr. Wells), that inasmuch as “the colour of the skin and hair is sometimes correlated in a surprising manner with a complete immunity from the action of certain vegetable poisons, and from the attacks of parasites ... negroes and other dark races might have acquired their dark tints by the darker individuals escaping from the deadly influence of the miasma of their native countries, during a long series of generations.”
The testimony on this point being, however, conflicting and unsatisfactory, Darwin gave up this notion too, and fell back on the theory that differences in complexion are due to differences in taste, and were created through the agency of Sexual Selection. “We know,” he says, “from the many facts already given that the colour of the skin is regarded by the men of all races as a highly important element in their beauty; so that it is a character which would be likely to have been modified through selection, as has occurred in innumerable instances with the lower animals. It seems at first sight a monstrous supposition that the jet-blackness of the negro should have been gained through sexual selection; but this view is supported by various analogies, and we know that negroes admire their own colour.”
Doubtless there is some truth in Darwin’s view, but it does not cover the whole ground. Natural as well as Sexual Selection has been instrumental in producing the diverse colours of various races. Hitherto the trouble has been that no one could understand how a black skin could be useful to an African negro. It ought to make him feel uncomfortably hot—for is it not well known that black absorbs heat more than any other colour? and do we not feel warmer in summer if we wear black than if we wear white clothes?
No doubt whatever. But it so happens that the skin is not made of dead wool or felt. It contains, among various other ingenious arrangements, a vast number of minute holes or pores, through which, when we are very warm, the perspiration leaks, and, in changing into vapour, absorbs the body’s heat and leaves it cool, or even cold. Now, in a negro’s skin these pores are both larger and more numerous than in ours, which partly accounts for his indifference to heat, and the fact that his temperature is lower than ours. Yet it does not solve the problem in hand; for there is no visible reason why Natural Selection should not succeed in enlarging the number and size of the pores in a white skin as easily as in a black one.
A year or two ago Surgeon-Major Alcock sent a communication to Nature in which, as I believe, he for the first time suggested the true reason why tropical man is black, and why his blackness is useful to him. He pointed out that since the pigment-cells in the negro’s skin are placed in front of the nerve terminations, they serve to lessen the intensity of the nerve vibrations that would be caused in a naked human body by exposure to a tropical sun; so that the pigment plays the same part as a piece of smoked glass held between the sun and the eyes.
This ingenious theory at once explains some curious and apparently anomalous observations communicated to Nature by Mr. Ralph Abercrombie from Darjeeling. They are that “In Morocco, and all along the north of Africa, the inhabitants blacken themselves round the eyes to avert ophthalmia from the glare off hot sand;” that “In Fiji the natives, who are in the habit of painting their faces with red and white stripes as an ornament, invariably blacken them when they go out fishing on the reef in the full glare of the sun;” and that “In the Sikkim hills the natives blacken themselves round the eyes with charcoal to palliate the glare of a tropical sun on newly-fallen snow.”
How, on the other hand, are we to account for the white complexion of northern races? It is well known that there is a tendency among arctic animals to become white. This, in many cases, can be accounted for by the advantage white beasts of prey, as well as their victims, thus gain in escaping detection. But it is probable that another agency comes into play, first suggested by Craven in 1846, and thus summarised by a writer in Nature, 2d April 1885: “It is well known that white, as the worst absorber, is also the worst radiator of all forms of radiant energy, so that warm-blooded creatures thus clad would be better enabled to withstand the severity of an arctic climate—the loss of heat by radiation might, in fact, be expected to be less rapid than if the hairs or feathers were of a darker colour.”
This argument, which may be applied to man as well as to animals, is greatly strengthened by a circumstance which at first appears to oppose it—the fact, namely, that insects in northern regions, instead of being light-coloured, show a tendency toward blackness. But this apparent anomaly is easily explained. Insects, being cold-blooded, cannot lose any bodily heat through radiation; whereas a black surface, by absorbing as much solar heat as possible while it lasts, adds to their comfort and vitality.
The question now arises, Which was the original colour of the human race, white or black? This question, too, we are enabled to answer with the aid of a principle of evolution which, so far, has stood every test,—the principle that the child’s development is an epitome of the evolution of his race. Before birth there is no colouring matter at all in the skin of a negro child. “In a new-born child the colour is light gray, and in the northern parts of the negro countries the completely dark colour is not attained till towards the third year,” says Waitz; and again, in speaking of Tahiti: “The children are here (as everywhere in Polynesia) white at birth, and only gradually assume their darker colour under the influence of sunlight; covered portions of their bodies remain lighter, and since women wear more clothes than men, and dwell more in the shade, they too are often of so light a colour that they have red cheeks and blush visibly.”
So we are entitled to infer that primitive man was originally white, or whitish. As he moved south, Natural Selection made him darker and darker by continually favouring the survival of those individuals whose colour—owing to the spontaneous variation found throughout Nature—was of a dark shade, and therefore better able to dull the ardour of the sun’s rays. In the north, on the contrary, a light complexion was favoured for its quality of retaining the body’s heat. The yellow and red varieties need not be specially considered, for it has been shown that the different tints of the iris are merely due to the greater or less quantity of the same pigmentary matter; and as the colouring matter of the complexion and the hair is similar to that of the eye, it is probable that the same holds true of different hues of the skin; so that yellowish, brown, and reddish tints may be looked upon as mere intermediate stages between white and black. A trace of pigment, indeed, is found even in our skins; and I believe that the reason why we become brown on exposure to the sun is that the skin, when thus exposed and irritated, secretes a larger amount of this colouring matter, to serve, like a dimly-smoked glass, as a protection against scorching rays.
From all these considerations we may safely infer that the particular hue of man’s skin in each climate is useful to him, and not merely an ornamental product of “taste,” as Darwin believed. Yet to some extent Sexual Selection, doubtless, does come into play in most cases. At a low stage of culture each race likes its special characteristics in an exaggerated form,—a trait which would lead the more vigorous men to persistently select the darkest girls as wives, and thus cause their gradual predominance over the others: while the men, too, would, of course, inherit a darker tint from their mothers. But a still more important consideration is this, that, as Dr. Topinard points out, “Dark colour in the negro is a sign of health,”—naturally, since the darker the dermal pigment, the better are the nerves of temperature protected against the enervating solar rays. Concerning the Polynesians, too, Ellis (cited by Waitz) “notes expressly that a dark colour was more admired and desired because it was looked upon as a sign of vigour.”
These facts yield us a most profound insight into the methods of amorous selection. The erotic instinct, whose duty is the preservation of the species, is above all things attracted by Health, because without Health the species must languish and die out. In a climate where—under the circumstances in which negroes live—a light complexion is incompatible with Health, it is bound to be eliminated.
Fortunately, the negro’s taste is not sufficiently refined to make him feel the æsthetic inferiority of the ebony complexion imposed on him by his climate. Wherein this æsthetic inferiority consists is graphically pointed out in these words of Figuier: “The colour of the skin takes away all charm from the negro’s countenance. What renders the European’s face pleasing is that each of its features exhibits a particular shade. The cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin of the white have each a different tinge. On an African visage, on the contrary, all is black, even the eyebrows, as inky as the rest, are merged in the general colour; scarcely another shade is perceptible, except at the line where the lips join each other.”
Nor is this all. Not only do we look in vain, in the monotonous blackness of the negro’s face, for those varied tints which adorn a white maiden’s face, borrowing one another’s charms by insensible gradations, but also for those subtle emotional changes which, even if they existed in the negro’s mind, could not paint themselves so delicately on his opaque countenance, betraying every acceleration or retardation in the heart’s beats, indicating every nuance of hope and despair, of pleasure or anguish.
In our own latitude, luckily, Natural Selection favours, in the manner indicated, the survival of the translucent white complexion. And what Natural Selection leaves undone, Sexual Selection completes. Romantic Love is the great awakener of the sense of Beauty, and in proportion as Love is developed and unimpeded in its action, does the complexion become more beautiful and more appreciated. Savages, blind to the delicate tints of a transparent skin, daub themselves all over with mixtures of grease and paint. The women of ancient Greece had taste enough to feel the ugliness of the pallor caused by being constantly chaperoned and locked up, but not enough to know that no artificial paint can ever replace the natural colour of health. Hence, as Becker tells us, “painting was almost universal among Grecian women.” Perhaps they did not use any rouge at home, but it “was resumed when they were going out, or wished to be specially attractive.” The men, apparently, had better taste, for we read that “Ischomachos counselled his young wife to take exercise, that she might do without rouge, which she was accustomed constantly to use.”
Coming to more recent times, we find men still protesting in vain against the feminine fashion of bedaubing the face with vulgar paint. More than two centuries ago La Bruyère informed his countrywomen pointedly that “If it is the men they desire to please, if it is for them that they paint and stain themselves, I have collected their opinions, and I assure them, in the name of all or most men, that the white and red paint renders them frightful and disgusting; that the red alone makes them appear old and artificial; that men hate as much to see them with cherry in their faces, as with false teeth in their mouth and lumps of wax in the jaws.”
It is needless to say that women who paint their faces put themselves on a level with savages; for they show thereby that they prefer hideous opaque daubs to the charm of translucent facial tints. Masculine protestation, combined with masculine amorous preference for pure complexions, has at last succeeded in banishing paint from the boudoir of the most refined ladies; and this, combined with compulsory vaccination against smallpox, accounts for the increasing number of good complexions in the world.
But, the important question now confronts us, Is there no limit to the evolution of whiteness of complexion? Will Sexual Selection continue to favour the lighter shades until the hyperbolic “milk and blood” complexion will have been universally realised?
An emphatic “No”“No” is the answer. An exaggerated white is as objectionable as black,—more so, in fact, because, whereas the deepest black indicates good health, extreme whiteness suggests the pallor of ill-health, and will therefore always displease Cupid, the supreme judge of Personal Beauty. Moreover, in a very white face the red cheek suggests the confusing blush or the hectic flush rather than the subtle tints of health and normal emotion. And again, the Scandinavian rose-and-lily complexion is inferior to the delicate and slightly-veiled tint of the Spanish brunette, because the latter suggests the mellowing action of the sun’s rays, which promises more permanence of beauty. Hence it is that in the marriage market a decided preference is shown for the brunette type, as we shall see in the chapter on Blondes and Brunettes.
We are now in a position to understand the extreme importance of the complexion from an amorous point of view, and to see why the care of the complexion has almost monopolised the attention of those desiring to improve their personal appearance, as shown by the fact that the word “cosmetic,” in common parlance, refers to the care of the skin alone.
Books containing recipes for skin lotions, ointments, and powders are so numerous, that it is not worth while to devote much space to the matter here. As a rule, the best advice to those about to use cosmetics is Don’t. Every man whose admiration is worth having will infinitely prefer a freckled, or even a pallid or smallpox-marked, face to one showing traces of powder or greasy ointments, or lifeless, cadaverous enamel, opaque as ebony blackness.
If a woman’s skin is so morbidly sensitive as to be injured by ordinary water and good soap, it is a sign of ill-health which calls for residence in the country and the mellowing rays of the sun. Where this is unattainable, the water may be medicated by the addition of a slice of lemon, cucumber, or horse-radish, to all of which magic effects are often attributed. The black spots on the sides of the nose may be removed in a few weeks by the daily application (with friction) of lemon juice. For pimples and barber’s itch a camphor and sulphur ointment, which may be obtained of any chemist, is the simplest remedy. For a shiny, polished complexion, and excessive redness of the nose, cheeks, and knuckles, the following mixture is recommended by a good authority:—Powdered borax, one half ounce; pure glycerine, one ounce; camphor-water, one quart. Borax, indeed, is as indispensable a toilet article as soap or a nail-brush. After washing the face, exposure to the raw air should always be avoided for ten or fifteen minutes.
“A certain amount of friction applied to the face daily will do much,” says Dr. Bulkley, “to keep the pores of the sebaceous glands open; and, by stimulating the face, to prevent the formation of the black specks and red spots so common in young people, I generally direct that the face be rubbed to a degree short of discomfort, and that the towel be not too rough.” Slight friction also helps to ward off wrinkles.
Two or three weekly baths—hot in winter, cold in summer—are absolutely necessary for those who wish to keep their skin in a healthy condition; and no elixir of youth and beauty could produce such a sparkling eye and glow of rosy health as a daily morning sponge bath, followed by friction—care being taken, in a cold room, to expose only one part of the body at a time. The importance of keeping open the pores of the skin by bathing is seen by the fact that if a man were painted with varnish he would suffocate in a few hours; for the skin is a sort of external lung, aiding its internal colleague in removing effete products, dissolved in the perspiration, from the system.
The debris and oily matter brought to the surface of the skin and deposited there by the perspiration cannot be completely removed without soap. Unfortunately, this article has done more to ruin complexions than almost any other cause, except smallpox and the superstitious dread of sunshine. Many people have a peculiar mania for economising in soap. If they can buy a piece of soap for a farthing, they consider themselves wonderfully clever, regardless of the fact that it may not only ruin their complexion, but produce a repulsive skin disease which it will cost much gold to cure. Do they ever realise that these soaps, which they thus smear over the most delicate parts of their body every day, are made of putrid carcasses of animals, rancid fat, and corrosive alkalies? Has no one ever told them that if a soap is both cheap and highly perfumed it is certain to be of vile composition, and injurious to the skin? After washing yourself wait a moment till the soap’s artificial odour has disappeared, and then smell your hands. That vile rancid odour which remains—if you knew its source, you would immediately run for a Turkish bath to wash off the very epidermis to which that odour has adhered.
What has ruined so many complexions is not soap itself, but bad soap. A famous specialist, Dr. Bulkley, says that “there is no intrinsic reason why soap should not be applied to the face, although there is a very common impression among the profession, as well as the laity, that it should not be used there.... The fact is, that many cases of eruptions upon the face are largely due to the fact that soap has not been used on that part; and it is also true that, if properly employed, and if the soap is good, it is not only harmless, but beneficial to the skin of the face, as to every other part of the body.”
“A word may be added in reference to the so-called ‘medicated soaps,’ whose number and variety are legion, each claiming virtues far excelling all others previously produced.... Now all or most of this attempt to ‘medicate’ soap is a perfect farce, a delusion, and a snare to entrap the unwary and uneducated.... Carbolic soap is useless and may be dangerous, because the carbolic acid may possibly become the blind beneath which a cheap, poor soap is used; for in all these advertised and patented nostrums the temptation is great to employ inferior articles that the pecuniary gain may be greater. The small amount of carbolic acid incorporated in the soap cannot act as an efficient disinfectant.”