DARK AND FAIR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5504, 16 November 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

DARK AND FAIR.

(From the Saturday Review.)

Tho Britisi Association, in the Biologicil Section, discussed the other day the effect of race on politics and national character. It seemed, however, to be thought th*t race affected personal appearance more than political conduct. Wo may at any rate owe our complexion to forgotten ancestors. Some > ears ago Mr. Gladstoue, whom nothing escapes, declared that light haired people were far less numerous than in his youth Many middle-aged persons will probably agree with him. The English have the reputation of being a fair race ; and yet, if any one looks down on the heads of the people at a concert or in a theatre, he will bo almost surprised at the number of dark polls. If it be true, as some one maintained at tho meeting of the British Association, that the distiuct early races are now all mixed and blended, and that nevertheless representatives of the pure charaeteristics of race constantly appear, it seems that tho blonde Cells are dying out und "the dark Iberians" surviving. If the humau race were ever bo unfortunate, in cousequeuca of the blending of blond, as co become of one settled complexion, the old rivalry and duali-iu of dark and fair would be lost. This rivalry is as manifest in the predilections of historioal races as it ÜBed to be in tho English novel. The time was when the blaok.haired, blabk•eyed girl of fiction was as dark of soul as of tresses ; while the blue-eyed maiden's oharaotcr was of " heaven's own color." Thackeray damaged this tradition by invariably making his d irk heroine nice, hU fair heroine a treacherous siron. Beolcy is btnwU ; Kmmy, brown; Betsy Auiory, to she herself, layers, is " blanoho

«fc blonde ;" the exemplary Laura is of a darker tint. Even Angelica, in the Hose and the Ring, the affected aud insincere Angelica, is yullnw-hai ed ; while the lionet Betsinda in a nut-brown niaid. When ario'her distinoiiished nnvelist ma le the criminal Ladv AnfUey a blonde (if we have not absolutely forcotteo bur adventure-, l.ady Andley was little better than one of th- wicked), blonde miscreants became qni'e the order of the day. Occasionally their locks were described as "tawov;" hut they were never dark. At tht same time, the ebon and lu-trous tresses aud olive complexion, which captivated our ancestors in Books of Beauty, went out of fashion. The excesses of imitative art, the curls and fringes falsely golden of to-day, prove that Minna would no longer captivate any pirate of taste. In another generation the balance may have shifted, and fashion, like a lady iu the adventures of Henry Esmond, may dote on a black man. Meantime it is curious to note how prejudice has varied in the past, though on the whole, perhaps, golden hair has always had the better of the contest.

The ancieat liauls, as we learn from Claudian and other authorities, were warm admirers of yellow hair, fiava QMia, crincferox. They even used a kind of soap which was supposed to make their locks golden for ever. The Roman ladies, rather late in their history, employed cosmetics possessing the same virtue ; but, on the whole, the Romans were people of Catholic taste and celebrated with equal fervor the dark and the goldeu hair, the brown and the blonde complexion. Lucretius, in a passage adopted by Moliere, shows that each tint has its charm. Horace speaks of a man

Spectandum nlgrla oculls, nigroque eaplllo. The dark lover in Virgil knows hqw to plead his own cause poetically:—

Albi llgui-tra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur and Ovid says of a youth at that age when, as Homer declares, " his bloom his fairest,"

Et suberat Sara jam nova barba corns. As for Homer, he appears to have been the poet of an imp»rtial age. He actually seems to make Odysseus fair in one passage, and dark in another. Menelaua has the constant epithet xanthos, as the Northern Harold was" Harold Pair-hair. The Greek gods, though all related to each other by bonds of blood, were of complexion as widely different as the dark an I fair children of an English family. The " golden Aphrodite" and the " greyeyed Athene " were foils to ox-eyed Hera and Poddon of the blue-black lockß. The Hebrews appear to have thought it rather odd that any one should be both b'ack and comely. If Sir Pereder, in the Mabinogion, represented old Welsh taste, tho O Its of Wales admired darkhaired women. Thus, when the ICnight saw the wounded raveu lying iu the snow, he determined, after long musing, that the bird's plumage was like the hair of his beloved, while the red blood en the white ground was the image of her complexion. It would not be difficult, however, to select fair beauties from Welsh legend -for example, Iseult of the white hands:— The ringlets on her shoulders ljlng In their flitting lustre vying With the clasp of burnished '-old Which her heavy robe doth hold. - She is n foil, in legend as well as in Mr. Matthew Arnold'» poem, to IBeult of Ireland:— Shaking back her raven hair With the old Imperious air. It is probable that all races have chiefly admired the tint that is rarest amongst themselves. In ancieut Greece, we'may suppose from the impartiality of poets, that neither dark nor yellow locks were predominant, though, if we might judge from the gilt or russet chevelure of the colored terra-cotta figurines from Tanagra, the I'ceotian women were notable for golden hair. There is a class of poetry which is remaikable for its steady partisanship of fair beauties. Wherever one finds a popular song, a traditional ballad, it is loud in admiration, like the ricotch ballads without exception, of yellow. That tint, we believe, is rare iu modern Greece, hut iu the love songs and short ditties of the pe pie of the Morea and the islands the beloved has always golden hair aud eyes of sapphire blue. The deserted bride sings how her lover's hair " shone like the sun " about his sho driers. In the French " Volks-lieder " the girls are always as invariably blond as in the solids of Heine. " Blonde h with us a syuonyiua for belle," stys M. Laisnel de laSallcin his interesting book on the legends and customs of the people of Berry. The villagers say of a young man, "il. va voir sa blonde," though the "blonde" has hair of intense black. There is even such an expression as " aller en blonde," "to go a-wooing," which proves the universality of the belief iu fair beauties. People describe a child 01 grown-up person with reddi-h hair as "blonde comme ,un haasin " —a scoured copper basin, be it understood. This sayiug is as old as the time of Goillaume de Lorris, who uses it in the Soman de la Rose :

Clicreus ot blons com on bacln. Marot, ton, lias Vierge plus blornlo qu'un bassln. The peasants retain the ancient taste of the Court and the courtly poets. M. Just Veillat say» tint the Trouveres u«ed to ask forgiveness from their audience when they sang the praises of a brunette. We confess that we remember no examples of this practice; nay, in the latest semi-epic songs the Soldan's daughter (who was sure to be dark) always won the knight from her rival, the Christian lady. In Brantome's time the fashion for yellow hair prevailed. It may have come, with other ideas of the Renaissance, from Italy, where the "Venetian ladies used to stretch their locks out over the vast brims of sort of hat, and sit on the house-top exposed to the full rays of tin sun. It was natural that painters should prefer -and help to keep in tasion the Venetian locks which seem to have caught a sunbea'n on their coils, and even now hold it prisoned ou the canvas of Titian or of Palma.

-Thus it is natural enough that Marot, preserving the Italian tradition, should make a lady say— Ponrtant st Ja suls brunette, Amy, n'o" preiies estuoy ; Autant «uis larme et Jeunette Q I'une plus blanche quo moy. Guillanme da Lorris was of the sime way of thinking before Italy had so much influence on French taste : Icolle dame ot nom biautea : £1 no fu obscuro ne brune, Ains lu olere comme la lune.

This popular French preference for blondes is not abs.ilutely universal. There is a large class of songs dealing with the misadventures and wots of deserters from the ax my. Iu the district about .Meti love Beems to make as many soldiers run away from the colors as in the American army (according to Thackeray's ballad) the passion brinjs recruits to tbem. In that half German country, where the mass of the people should be fair, the deserters all ascribe their ruin to dark beauties :

Jo mo suis engage Pour l'amour d'uiie tonne, Non pas pour lescaueaux Que jfflul ai donnds, Mais pour un doux baiser Qu'olle fta refuse. Another solder asks pitifully— Pant-il pour l'amour il'une brune Etre enferin6 dans les cachots ?

The example of France, in the distiicts where light-haired people .ire the rare exceptions, proves that the poetical charm of blondes may be preserved in song.', even when actual examples have almost ceased to exist, or at least hive become very rare. There are probably more pretty things to be said, with no great expeuse of fancy, about blue eyes and golden locks than about their rivals. There are an almo-t inexhaustible number of similes to bo drawn from the se:i, the sky, sapphires, turquoise*, amber, metallic substances, flowers, nud such other component parts of natural beauty aa readily occur to the most limited imagination. The dew that on the violet lies, ehouy, the plumage of tin crow, and the raven down of darkness, almost exhaust the material oojects which the poet of dark maidens can force into his service. For this reasou, if for no other, fair beautiea are likely to retain their popularity aud preeminence in verse. It is pleasant to refiVot that, even if Mr. Gladstone was right in his gloomy idea, even if fair hair is going out, science can, and does, daily remedy the omissions and negligence of nature. Whilo there are auricomoun fluid*, the po«t need never despair of finding locks aud complexions worthy of his store of jewelled epithets. The fashionable demand in this, a* in other regions of political eoonoray, is soon confronted with the supply. This, again, on Darwinian principles, as understanded by the peoplo, must react ou the natural complexion of the race; and Angli may once mors ha angcli, as far as yellow hair can make thera worthy of the Pontifical compliment. _^^____,