On this collection I
have not drawn.
When we survey broadly the ideals of feminine beauty set down by the
peoples of many lands, it is interesting to note that they all contain
many features which appeal to the aesthetic taste of the modern European,
and many of them, indeed, contain no features which obviously clash with
his canons of taste. It may even be said that the ideals of some savages
affect us more sympathetically than some of the ideals of our own mediaeval
ancestors. As a matter of fact, European travelers in all parts of the
world have met with women who were gracious and pleasant to look on, and
not seldom even in the strict sense beautiful, from the standpoint of
European standards. Such individuals have been found even among those
races with the greatest notoriety for ugliness.
Even among so primitive and remote a people as the Australians
beauty in the European sense is sometimes found. "I have on two
occasions," Lumholtz states, "seen what might be called beauties
among the women of western Queensland. Their hands were small,
their feet neat and well shaped, with so high an instep that one
asked oneself involuntarily where in the world they had acquired
this aristocratic mark of beauty.
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