The Arts of Beauty/Chapter 15

It will be difficult to over-estimate the importance of a well-proportioned foot and ankle as a part of female beauty. There is a delightful promise in a fine foot and ankle that the rest of the limb is shaped with the same exquisite grace. And, on the other hand, a clumsy foot and ankle seems to presage a heavy and bad-shaped leg. This rule may not always be just, but there is no getting such an association out of a gentleman's mind. When was the time that the poets did not sing of the charms of a "nimble foot?" or of

Virgil tells us that,

and that "gentle walk" will rarely, if ever, be found connected with a heavy and an ill-shaped foot and ankle. We know it is natural for the mind to associate every other charm with that of a graceful step. Thus Milton sung—

​The pains which some nations take to ensure a small foot amounts to a torture which ought to be called by no other name than that of the art of deforming. In China, especially, this thing is carried to such an extent that the women's feet are entirely spoiled. In Spain, however, the art is practised with astonishing success in causing beautifully small feet. I have known ladies there, who were past twenty years of age, to sleep every night with bandages on their feet and ankles drawn as tight as they could be and not stop the circulation. There is nothing that a Spanish beauty is more proud of, than a small and beautiful foot and ankle, and nowhere do you find more of those charms than in Spain.

A great cause of thick ankles among women of the cities, who are fashionably and genteelly brought up, is a want of exercise and sitting indolently in over-heated rooms. Such habits are quite sure to produce slight swellings of the ankles, and cause a chronic flabbiness of the muscles. You might as well expect to see a rose-bush spring, bud and bloom, in a closely-pent oven, as to anticipate fine and healthy proportions from a long continuance of such habits. Let every lady be assured that there is no part of her body which will suffer more from want of proper exercise than her feet and ankles.

But woman's chief art, in making the most out of this portion of her charms, must consist in properly and tastefully dressing them. Let her start with the maxim that she had better wear a bad bonnet, than a bad shoe. Let her believe that an ill-fitting dress will not ​do so much towards breaking the charm of her beauty in the mind of a man, as a loose and soiled stocking.

The celebrated Madam Vestris used to have her white satin boots sewed on her feet every morning, in order that they should perfectly fit the exquisite shape of her foot. Of course, they had to be ripped off at night, and the same pair could never be worn but once. This famous beauty rejoiced in the reputation of having the handsomest foot of any woman in the world, and it was said that she made more conquests with her feet than with her face, beautiful as it was.

If a lady has not a naturally beautiful foot, her care is directed to the means of preventing attention from being called to it. For this reason, she dresses it as neatly, but as soberly as possible. Her hope is in a plain black shoe, and she especially eschews all gay colors, and all ornaments, which would be sure to attract the eye to a spot of which she cannot be proud. Indeed, bright-colored shoes are in bad taste for anybody, except on certain brilliant occasions, where fancy dresses are worn.

Above all things, every lady of taste avoids an ornamented stocking. Stockings with open-wove, ornamented insteps, denote a vulgar taste, and, instead of displaying a fine proportion, confuse the contour of a pretty foot. But, where the ankle is rather large, or square, a pretty, unobtrusive net clock, of the same color as the stocking, will be a useful device, and induce the beholder to believe in the perfect symmetry of the parts.

Though a woman is to be fully conscious of the charm ​of a pretty foot and ankle, yet she must not seem to be so. Nothing will draw the laugh on her so quick as a manifestly designed exhibition of these parts. It is, no doubt, a very difficult thing for a lady who has a fine foot to keep it from creeping forth into sight beneath the dress; but, let her be sure that the charm is gone the moment the beholder detects it is done designedly If men are not modest themselves, they will never forgive a woman if she is not.

Before leaving this subject, I must not forget to speak of the importance to a lady of a genteel and sprightly walk. The practised eye detects the quality of a woman's mind and heart in her step. Nor is this an idle fancy, for the reason that every situation of the soul, every internal movement, has its regular progression, in the external action of the body. We may say as Seneca makes the wife of Hercules say of Lychas—

An indistinct, shuffling, irregular, sluggish, and slovenly walk is a tolerably sure sign of corresponding attributes of the soul. And, on the other hand, an affected, pert, vain, and pedantic step draws upon a woman the worst impressions from the opposite gender. But there is a remarkable charm in a walk characterized by blended dignity and vivacity. It leaves upon the beholder a lasting impression of those attributes of mind which most surely awaken esteem and admiration.