Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World Part 13

OF AGE.

External indications of age are required chiefly where the face is veiled, or where the woman observed precedes the observer and may reasonably excite his interest.

In either of these cases, if the foot and ankle have lost a certain moderate plumpness, and a.s.sumed a certain sinewy or bony appearance, the woman has generally pa.s.sed the period of youth.

If in walking, instead of the ball or outer edge of the foot first striking the ground, it is the heel which does so, then has the woman in general pa.s.sed the meridian of life. Unlike the last indication, this is apparent, however the foot and ankle may be clothed.--The reason of this indication is the decrease of power which unfits the muscles to receive the weight of the body by maintaining the extension of the ankle-joint.

Exceptions to this last indication are to be found chiefly in women in whom the developments of the body are proportionally much greater, either from a temporary or a permanent cause, than those of the limbs, the muscles of which are consequently incapable of receiving the weight of the body by maintaining the extension of the ankle-joint.

_THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY_;

OR A DESCRIPTION OF THE FAMOUS STATUE OF THE VENUS DE MEDICI.

The Venus de Medici at Florence is the most perfect specimen of ancient sculpture remaining; and is spoken of as the Model of Female Beauty. It was so much a favorite of the Greeks and Romans, that a hundred ancient repet.i.tions of this statue have been noticed by travellers. This statue is said to have been found in the forum of Octavia at Rome. It represents woman at that age when every beauty has just been perfected.

"The Venus de Medici at Florence," says a distinguished writer, "is like a rose which, after a beautiful daybreak, expands its leaves to the first ray of the sun, and represents that age when the limbs a.s.sume a more finished form and the breast begins to develop itself."

The size of the head is sufficiently small to leave that predominance to the vital organs in the chest, which, as already said, makes the nutritive system peculiarly that of woman. This is the first and most striking proof of the profound knowledge of the artist, the principles of whose art taught him that a vast head is not a const.i.tuent of female beauty. In mentioning the head it is scarcely possible to avoid noticing the rich curls of hair.

The eyes next fix our attention by their soft, sweet, and glad expression. This is produced with exquisite art. To give softness, the ridges of the eyebrows are rounded. To give sweetness, the under eyelid, which I would call the expressive one, is slightly raised. To give the expression of gladness or of pleasure, the opening of the eyelids is diminished, in order to diminish, or partially to exclude, the excess of those impressions, which make even pleasure painful. Other exquisite details about those eyes, confer on them unparallelled beauty. Still, this look is far from those traits indicative of lasciviousness, with which some modern artists have thought to characterize their Venuses.

Art still profounder was perhaps shown in the configuration of the nose.

The peculiar connexion of this sense with love was evidently well understood by the artist. Not only is smell peculiarly a.s.sociated with love, in all the higher animals, but it is a.s.sociated with reproduction in plants, the majority of which evolve delicious odors only when the flowers or organs of fructification are displayed. Connected, indeed, with the capacity of the nose, and the cavities which open into it, is the projection of the whole middle part of the face.

The mouth is rendered sweet and delicate by the lips being undeveloped at their angles, and by the upper lip continuing so, for a considerable portion of its length. It expresses love of pleasure by the central development of both lips, and active love by the especial development of the lower lip. By the slight opening of the lips, it expresses desire.

These exquisite details, and the omission of nothing intellectually expressive that nature presents, have led some to imagine the Venus de Medici to be a portrait. In doing so, however, they see not the profound calculation for every feature thus embodied. More strangely still, they forget the ideal character of the whole: the notion of this ideal head being too small, is especially opposed to such an opinion.

Withal, the look is amorous and languishing, without being lascivious, and is as powerfully marked by gay coquetry, as by charming innocence.

The young neck is exquisitely formed. Its beautiful curves show a thousand capabilities of motion; and its admirably-calculated swell over the organ of voice, results from, and marks the struggling expression of still mysterious love.

With regard to the rest of the figure, the admirable form of the mammae, which, without being too large, occupy the bosom, rise from it with various curves on every side, and all terminate in their apices, leaving the inferior part in each precisely as pendent as gravity demands; the flexile waist gently tapering little farther than the middle of the trunk; the lower portion of it beginning gradually to swell out higher even than the umbilicus; the gradual expansion of the haunches, those expressive characteristics of the female, indicating at once her fitness for the office of generation and that of parturition--expansions which increase till they reach their greatest extent at the superior part of the thighs; the fulness behind their upper part, and on each side of the lower part of the spine, commencing as high as the waist, and terminating in the still greater swell of the distinctly-separated hips; the flat expanse between these, and immediately over the fissure of the hips, relieved by a considerable dimple on each side, and caused by the elevation of all the surrounding parts; the fine swell of the broad abdomen which, soon reaching its greatest height immediately under the umbilicus, slopes neatly to the mons veneris, but, narrow at its upper part, expands more widely as it descends, while, throughout, it is laterally distinguished by a gentle depression from the more muscular parts on the sides of the pelvis; the beautiful elevation of the mons veneris; the contiguous elevation of the thighs which, almost at their commencement rise as high as it does; the admirable expansion of these bodies inward, or toward each other, by which they almost seem to intrude upon each other, and to exclude each from its respective place; the general narrowness of the upper, and the unembraceable expansion of the lower part thus exquisitely formed;--all these admirable characteristics of female form, the mere existence of which in woman must, one is tempted to imagine, be even to herself, a source of ineffable pleasure--these const.i.tute a being worthy, as the personification of beauty, of occupying the temples of Greece; present an object finer, alas! than nature seems even capable of producing; and offer to all nations and ages a theme of admiration and delight.

Well might Thomson say:--

"So stands the statue that enchants the world, So bending tries to veil the matchless boast, The mingled beauties of exulting Greece."

And Byron, in yet higher strain:--

"There, too, the G.o.ddess loves in stone, and fills The air around with beauty; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail; And to the fond idolaters of old Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.

We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart Reels with its fulness; there--forever there-- Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, We stand as captives, and would not depart."

THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.

BY LORD BYRON.

Away with those fictions of flimsy romance!

Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!

Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow, Whose pastoral pa.s.sions are made for the grove, From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love!

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art; Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove, I court the effusions that spring from the heart Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love.

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove; Some portion of paradise still is on earth, And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past-- For years fleet away with the wings of the dove-- The dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.

THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA.

_See Frontispiece._

The Princess of antiquity, most renowned for her personal charms, was in her unrivalled beauty, her mental perfections, her weaknesses, and the unhappy conclusion of an amorous existence the counterpart of the most beautiful queen of later times, the unfortunate Mary of Scotland.

Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt. She was early given to wife to her own brother, Ptolemy Dionysius, and ascended the throne conjointly with him, on the death of their father. It was doubtless the policy of the kingdom thus to preserve all the royal honors in one family--the daughter being the queen, as well as the son king of the country. But her ambitious and intriguing spirit, restrained by no ties of reciprocal love to her husband, who was also her brother, sought for means to burst a union at once unnatural and galling: and the opportunity at length arrived. Julius Caesar, the conqueror of the world, having pursued the defeated Pompey into Egypt, there beheld Cleopatra in the zenith of her beauty; and he before whose power the whole world was kneeling, prostrated himself before a pretty woman. The following is the account of her first introduction to Caesar, as given by the historian.

It shows that she had no maidenly scruples as to the mode of attaining her ends.

Her intrigues to become sole monarch, had made her husband-brother banish her from the capital. Hearing of the arrival of Caesar, she got into a small boat, with only one male friend, and in the dusk of the evening made for the palace where Caesar as well as her husband lodged.

As she saw it difficult to enter it undiscovered by her husband's friends, she rolled herself up in a carpet. Her companion tied her up at full length like a bale of goods, and carried her in at the gates to Caesar's apartments. This stratagem of hers, which was a strong proof of her wit and ingenuity, is said to have first opened her way to Caesar's heart, and her conquest advanced rapidly by the charms of her speech and person. The genius of Shakspeare has well depicted the power of her beauty at this time. He makes her to say, at a later period of life, when chagrined at the expected desertion of another lover,--

"Broad-fronted Caesar!

When thou wast here above the ground, I was A morsel for a monarch: And great Pompey Would stand, and make his eyes grow in my brow; There would he fix his longing gaze, and die With looking on his life."

But Cleopatra, who was not less remarkable for her cunning than for her beauty, knowing that Caesar was resolved to be gratified at whatever cost, determined that the price should be a round one: the terms of his admission to her arms, were that Caesar should expel her brother from the kingdom, and give the crown to her; which Caesar complied with. Cleopatra had a son by Caesar called Caesarion.

In the civil wars which distracted the Roman empire after the death of Caesar, Cleopatra supported Brutus, against Antony and Octavius. Antony, in his expedition to Parthia, summoned her to appear before him. She arrayed herself in the most magnificent apparel, and appeared before her judge in the most captivating attire. Though somewhat older than when she drew Caesar to her arms, her charms were still conspicuous;

"Age could not wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appet.i.te they feed. But she made hungry Where most she satisfied."

Her artifice on this occasion succeeded; Antony became enamoured of her, and publicly married her, although his wife the sister of Octavius was living. He gave Cleopatra the greater part of the eastern provinces of the Roman empire. This behaviour was the cause of a rupture between Octavius and Antony; and these two celebrated generals met in battle at Actium, where Cleopatra, by flying with sixty sail of vessels, ruined the interest of Antony, and he was defeated. Cleopatra had retired to Egypt, where soon after Antony followed her. Antony stabbed himself upon the false information that Cleopatra was dead; and as his wound was not mortal, he was carried to the queen, who drew him up by a cord from one of the windows of the monument, where she had retired and concealed herself.

Antony soon after died of his wounds, and Cleopatra, after she had received pressing invitations from Octavius, and even pretended declarations of love, destroyed herself by the bite of an asp, not to fall into the conqueror's hands. She had previously attempted to stab herself, and had once made a resolution to starve herself. But the means by which she destroyed herself, is said to produce the easiest of deaths: the Asp is a small serpent found near the river Nile, so delicate that it may be concealed in a fig; and when presented to the vitals of the body, its bite is so deadly as to render medical skill useless, while at the same time it is so painless, that the victim fancies herself dropping into a sweet slumber, instead of the arms of death. So Cleopatra, while she is applying the venomous reptile to her bosom, (as represented in the Frontispiece,) is supposed to use language like the following,--

"Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?"

Thus, after having chained in her embrace the two greatest generals that the Roman empire had produced, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, at the periods when they were respectively arbiters of the world's fate, perished Cleopatra by her own hand.