Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/90

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PERSONAL BEAUTY.

third of the face. They should be horizontal, and of a color to correspond with the complexion and the hair. In size they should be medium, and neither sunken nor prominent. Their motion should be free, slow rather than jerky, and always in the same axis, that is, they should not be in the least cross-eyed. They should be bright but not glittering, moist but not languishing, clear but not sharp. As Tennyson elegantly expresses it:—

"Eyes not down-dropt nor over bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent flame
Of the still spirit."

They should be strong enough to read the type in which this book is printed at a distance of four or five feet, and in form, position, color, size, and power, the one should exactly correspond with the other.


THE EYEBROWS.

The eyebrows are very significant of character and emotion. The Latin writer Pliny supposed that a portion of the soul had its dwelling there, and the German historian Herder says that the arched eyebrow is the rainbow of peace, but when contracted it is the strung bow of strife.

Their beauty consists in having them moderately thick, especially at the inner third, the outer extremity