Boyishness

“ It was this quality above all others which moved such boys as our hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him except excess of boyishness—by which I mean animal life in its fullest measure, good nature and honest impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and thoughtlessness enough to sink a three-decker. ”

“ As he grew to years of manhood he retained a deceptive aspect of boyishness. Blond and blue-eyed, he had the fresh complexion of a child, and his attempts to raise a mustache were discernible only with difficulty. ”

“ Miss Benham had spent the night thinking of Trevison, and she had spent much of her time during the present ride stealing glances at him. She had discovered something about him that had eluded her the 75 day before—an impulsive boyishness. It was hidden behind the manhood of him, so that the casual observer would not be likely to see it; men would have failed to see it, because she was certain that with men he would not let it be seen. ”

“ But what is there about a white skin more lovely than a black one, and why thrill over blue eyes and neglect the brown ones? What is the rationale for the admiration of slimness as against stoutness? Indeed, there are races who would turn with scorn from our slender debutante [1] and worship their more buxom heavy-busted and wide-hipped beauties. The only "rational" beauty in face and figure is that which stands as the outer mask of health, vigor, intelligence and normal procreative function. The standards set up in each age and place usually arise from local pride, from the familiar type. ”

“ Have you ever beheld a more gay and charming face than that of your betrothed? Can one be more white and blonde? are not her hands perfect? and that neck—does it not assume all the curves of the swan in ravishing fashion? ”

“ Especially the face, being furnished with a variety of muscles, does more in expressing the passions of the mind, than the whole human frame besides. The change of colour (in white people) shews, by turns, anger by redness, and sometimes by paleness; fear likewise by paleness, and shame by blushing. Every feature contributes its part. The mouth open, shews one state of the mind, shut, another; the gnashing of the teeth another. The forehead smooth, eyebrows arched and easy, shew tranquility or joy. ”

“ He was a handsome man, of the type whose harsh lines and dark color are softened by the blanching touch of age. His crisp thick silvery hair, his heavy brows and black eyes, the clear-cut rigidity of his strong mouth, his straight stalwart shoulders, gave him a certain splendor of aspect. His loneliness, too, and silence, the immobility of his look, added to this rather grim distinction. ”

“ But because she made herself poor in apparel, she became most rich in her humanity. There was nothing for the eye to rest upon but her bare self. And thus the contours of the head, the beauty of the hair, the line of it along the forehead and temples, the curvature of the brows, the chiseling of the proud nostrils and the high bridge of the nose, the molding of the mouth, the modeling of the throat, the shaping of the shoulders, the grace of the arms and the hands—all became conspicuous, absorbing. The slightest elements of physique and of personality came into view powerful, unforgetable. ”

“ Force, firmness, no ordinary self-reliance and courage found masterly expression in the rest of the face. There was through the whole physical man a nice blending of strength and delicacy of structure. The impression of fineness and finish was perhaps mainly owing to the woman-like purity and freshness of skin and color, which overspread the virile lines and features of the face from brow to chin. ”

“ To our way of thinking, such a face could scarcely be described as beautiful; but how much prejudice there is in our ideas of beauty! I soon came to find these brown faces, gleaming with health and fat, really pleasing. ”

“ The face of the man was a mask of weariness of the soul, which kills so vastly more efficiently than weariness of the body. You could see that weariness in the tired frown of the black brows, the narrowing of the dark eyes, the downward tug of the lips. ”

“ Blond and cherubic in youth, his countenance had grown in dignity as time changed its tints to drab and gray, reclaimed the superfluous flesh of his face, and drew the strong lines that are the half of a man’s good looks. ”

“ I cannot better conclude than with his own words. “A perfect man and a perfect woman should no more be alike in mind than in face: these silly imitations of sex are the height of folly; they make the wise man laugh and the lover run away.... In short, I take it, that, unless one be five feet six inches high, have a firm, tenor voice, and a beard on his chin, he should not pretend to be a man.” ”

“ In life, there had been too marked a discrepancy between the extreme warmth of the girl's colouring and the extreme immobility of her expression. Now that the blood had, as it were, been drained away to the last drop, now that temples and nostrils had attained transparency, the fine texture of the skin and the beauty of the curves of lips and chin were visible to every eye. ”

“ If you do recall the features, and say that an eye is blue, a chin sharp, a nose short, or a cheek sunken, I fancy that you do not succeed well in giving the impression of the person,—not so well as when you interpret at once to the heart the essential moral qualities of the face—its humor, gravity, sadness, spirituality. ”

“ In early life he was of a fair complexion, but with age the face grew swarthy, and even in middle life his abundant hair turned to a silvery whiteness, which but added beauty to his brow and made his appearance venerable. ”

“ I myself am born supremely passionate—so I was born with light yellow hair: all changes—that is the passion changes its direction and, taking a channel large enough, looks calmer, perhaps, than it should—and all my sympathies go with quiet strength, of course—but I know what the other kind is. ”

“ But more than these details did the stranger's face strike the novice; a face almost as perfect as the masks of the gods found in the temples; the rounded and curved features were over-full for a man, and the expression was too indifferent, troubled, almost weak, to be attractive, but taken in itself the face was noticeably beautiful. ”

“ Nothing indeed but the long effeminizing of our faces could have given rise to the present shaven ideal—to the forgetfulness of the true standard of masculine beauty of expression, which is naturally as antipodal as the magnetic north and south poles, to that of female loveliness, where delicacy of line, blushing changeable colour, and eyes that win by seeming not to wish it, are charms we all feel, and at the same time understand how inappropriate they are when applied to the opposite sex ”

“ Here everything is what it seems—our hair and our complexions, our limbs and our other organs, are all our own. Every one is as the hand of nature has fashioned him or her. I can imagine a couple of terrestrials being entrapped into mutual admiration by the beautifying arts of your tailors, milliners, hair-dressers and dealers in cosmetics. And when they got married they would find to their chagrin, that it was not one another they admired, but only clothes and wigs, padding, rouge and powder! ”

“ The profusion of black hair, and a curious intensity about their eyes, coupled with the hairy limbs and singularly vigorous physique, give them a formidably savage appearance; but the smile, full of "sweetness and light," in which both eyes and mouth bear part, and the low, musical voice, softer and sweeter than anything I have previously heard, make me at times forget that they are savages at all. ”

“ Generations of forefathers had imparted to her walk and bearing their courage and their pride. The precision of the eyebrow, the chiselled perfection of the nostril, the loveliness of the short red lip; the well-arched feet, small, but sure of themselves; the eyes that were kind and truthful and thoughtful; the sheen of her hair, the fineness of her skin, her nobly cast figure,—all these were evidences of descent from a people, that had reached in her the purity, without having lost the vigor, of one of its highest types. ”

“ If you really had a hard masculine face—the kind that goes with authentic masculoid characteristics—I wouldn’t say a word. I’d not be interested enough. But your type of beauty—real beauty—is the sort to express itself through clothes. Do you really hate beautiful and expressive gowns? ”

“ Whence came the influence he could not tell, and meanwhile it gained ever stronger and deeper hold upon him. Was it from the eyes, a-sparkle with the essence of youth and health? or from the mouth, with its red warmth of full yet delicate curves? the gates of what sweetness of breath! or from the crisp, dark, lustreless luxuriance of the hair? or from the curved shadows melting on the cheeks, and nestling beneath the chin? ”

“ But to counteract the effect of these too-faultless attributes, he had a great sinewy body, blunt hands with callouses below the fingers, and a careless, collegiate, thoroughly masculine manner. So men forgave him the beauty of his face, and women adored it the more. ”

“ Your lameness is nothing so long as your soul is left untouched, and your face, too,” he would sometimes add, kissing fondly the lovely face which, with each year, seemed to grow lovelier, and from which the snowy hair did not in the least detract. ”

“ Altogether, the face was cast in a rare and intellectual mould, and, if wanting in those more luxuriant attractions common to the age of the stranger, who could scarcely have attained his twenty-sixth year, it betokened, at least, that predominance of mind over body which in some eyes is the most requisite characteristic of masculine beauty. ”

“ His face was strikingly handsome, being, like his body, of that happy medium between womanly softness and the more rugged development of manly strength, which indicates a well harmonized physical structure. ”

“ I involuntarily put my hand up to my beard. "Oh, I don't mean that you're too hairy, the beard's becoming; but you are hairy. You look simple; somehow one associates simplicity with trustworthiness; and now you're blushing." ”

“ Praise of their beauty, based upon comparisons, flatters the most sensitive self-esteem. A movement of their eyebrows, the slightest play of the eye, the curling of the lip, instils a sort of terror in those whose lives and happiness depend upon their favor. ”

“ But if you will do as this white-beard advises, go and look for the fairy; throw yourself at her feet, tear your beard, scratch your face, beat your breast, and ask pardon for the ill-treatment you have shown her; for, as she is tender-hearted, she will be moved to pity at your misfortune. ”

“ Goodness itself radiates from those large, earnest blue eyes, those soft, white cheeks, that large forehead, with those dashes of silvery hair crossing it so smoothly and so exactly-that well-developed, but rather broad nose, and that mouth so expressive of gentleness. ”

“ He was a tall, spare man with a face that even in the wrinkles and thinness of age, and perhaps a little asceticism, was sweet and calm, and the brown eyes were soft, entreating. Clean shaven, the chin showed narrow, but the mouth redeemed it. ”

“ A sly look it was, a searching, critical look, that took close heed to all things, as—the fit and excellence of his clothes; the unconscious grace of his attitude; the hair that curled so crisp and dark at his temples; the woeful droop of his lips;—a long, inquisitive look, a look wholly feminine. Yes, he was certainly handsome, handsomer even than she had thought. ”

“ In looking at their massive, brutal jaws, their receding foreheads, their undifferentiated hands and feet, their coarse, hairy skin, their clumsy, inexpressive, gigantic mouths, their flat noses and nostrils open to the view, we are justified in calling them ugly, compared with ourselves, and in feeling proud that civilisation has gradually raised us so far above our country cousins, in beauty as in everything else, except the art of climbing trees. ”

“ They were the lips of a fighter and of a lover. They could taste the sweetness of life with relish, and they could put the sweetness aside and command life. The chin and jaw, strong and just hinting of square aggressiveness, helped the lips to command life. Strength balanced sensuousness and had upon it a tonic effect, compelling him to love beauty that was healthy and making him vibrate to sensations that were wholesome. ”

“ We get no pleasure from them except that of hearty anger and strong contrast. Their hot, raw, garish colour—the chalky dry skin of his women—the grinning leathern faces of his men—and the entire absence of toning—are as offensive to our eyesight as the heartlessness, the grimace, the want of all naturalness in expression or feeling, in his human beings, are to our moral taste. ”

“ Worth noting is the fact that many of them refer us not only to aesthetic life, but to the military profession and temperament, to the most genuine and even stalwart masculinity of physiques and occupations, with no trace or possible shade of effeminacy, or of a degeneracy of mind or body in such men-types. ”

“ His features were in general good; and what with youth and health, a florid complexion, fair skin, bright keen eyes, an aquiline nose, somewhat too much depressed, and an air of calm self-importance and courtly ease, he was the sort of man so often called handsome by those who little consider or know in what beauty really consists. ”

“ His dense, delicate hair, his overdrawn, retouched features, his clear complexion, ripe without being coarse, the very evenness of the growth of his beard, and that light, smooth slenderness of structure which made the movement of a single one of his fingers produce the effect of an expressive gesture—these personal points struck our sensitive young woman as signs of quality, of intensity, somehow as promises of interest. ”