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Essay XLIII: Of Beauty
Essay XLIII: Of Beauty
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in
a body that is comely, though not of delicate features; and that hath rather
dignity of presence than beauty of aspect. Neither is it almost seen, that
very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if nature were rather
busy not to err, than in labor to produce excellency. And therefore they prove
accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study rather behavior than virtue.
But this holds not always: for Augustus Caesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le
Bel of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismael the
Sophy of Persia, were all high and great spirits; and yet the most beautiful
men of their times. In beauty, that of favor ^1 is more than that of color;
and that of decent ^2 and gracious motion more than that of favor. That is the
best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express; no nor the first sight of
the life. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the
proportion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more
trifler; whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions;
the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to make one
excellent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter that
made them. Not but I think a painter may make a better face than ever was; but
he must do it by a kind of felicity (as a musician that maketh an excellent
air in (music), and not by rule. A man shall see faces, that if you examine
them part by part, you shall find never a good; and yet altogether do well. If
it be true that the principal part of beauty is in decent motion, certainly it
is no marvel though persons in years seem many times more amiable; pulchrorum
autumnus Pulcher [beautiful persons have a beautiful autumn]; for no youth can
be comely but by pardon, ^3 and considering the youth as to make up the
comeliness. Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot
last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little
out of countenance; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh
virtue shine, and vices blush.
[Footnote 1: Feature.]
[Footnote 2: Becoming.]
[Footnote 3: Making special allowance.]
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