Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/81

 and gives one the aspect of fatuity or half-idiocy. One of the Indian tribes in our western country dislike it so much that they press the skull of the child forward, so that they all have a highly intellectual appearance.

Wrinkles and spots on the forehead we shall treat of in the chapter on the skin.

A forehead broad in proportion to its height gives an air of dignity and queenliness, always much admired. There is an ancient Spanish poem dating from some time in the Middle Ages called "The Thirty Beauties of Woman," one of the lines of which is:—

"Tres anchas, los pechos, la frente, y el entrecejo."

"Three parts should be broad: the breast, the forehead, and the space between the eyebrows."

This dictum is strictly in accordance with the laws of ideal proportion. The head, in every view of it, should appear larger in the superior part, and gradually diminish as it descends. The beauty of the face, observes one of the great critics of art (Winkelman), depends largely on the angle which the line of the forehead seen in profile makes with the line of the nose. The greater the angle, in other words, the nearer the profile approaches a straight line, the more majestic and soft is the general expression. This observation, founded on a long contemplation of Greek art, is eminently true.