Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/175

 and delicate fibriliae of the nervous system, upon which greatly depends her power to charm, and to maintain it; for no female, be she girl, or matron, can half display her beauty, or captivate, permanently, those who approach her, unless. these nerves and these unseen fibriliae are in a healthful condition?

Let us not forget that beauty is love's most powerful weapon, and, before discussing other branches of the pleasant subject, reproduce the splendid results of a few modern and gifted writers' researches into the mighty mysteries of its special attainment and cultivation.

"Not a few of the thinkers and philosophers," says one pleasant and straightforward writer in his inimitable style, "have puzzled their wits in vain to make out a satisfactory definition of beauty. Though it seems impossible to describe, we all recognize and admire when we see it. It is not difficult to analyze the combination of material parts which compose a beautiful object; but there is a superadded charm or grace that is everything, and yet nothing, which eludes all attempts to fix in words. This is especially true of female beauty. There are, however, certain material elements which, if not sufficient in themselves to constitute, are essential to it. These we can describe with the utmost precision. Female beauty, thus considered entirely in a corporeal sense, may be defined as a harmonious combination of all the perfections of detail of which the different parts of the human body are capable. The chief elements are a just proportion between the whole and its parts, a sufficient fulness to give the figure a gentle undulation of outline, regular features, a proper disposition of the limbs, delicate hands and feet, a fine and transparent skin, with a warm blush of color over all.

"These are qualities highly prized by every woman, and irresistible in their influence upon all men. Nature, in endowing the human female with those attractions of which she is the happy and proud possessor, has given her, it might be said, a special sense for the comprehension of, and a fondness for, all that pertains to the cultivation of her beauty. She instinctively devotes herself to her toilet, with an intelligence, an assiduity, and a passion even, that does not admit us to doubt of the value of her personal charms.

"'It is almost a duty for science,' gallantly remarks Dr.