Character of Aspasia [pp. 354-358]

354 LITERARY
LITERARY SKETCHES.
BY THE EDITOR.
CHARACTER OF ASPASIA.
THE name of this celebrated woman has survived
the mutations of more than two thousand years. It
will probably go down to the end of time. That
there must have been something extraordinary in
her character, is certain from the duration of her
fame. History has given us the elements of that
character, and displayed the causes of her vast elevation above the ordinary level of her sex.
In her personal appearance, Aspasia was the loveliest of women. Indeed, thus much her name imports, and in her age names were given with a meaninig. The historians of that period have not left us
any minute description of her person; but when
they tell us that her beauty charmed all Athens, any
onle's historical recollections will soon settle every
other question. Who, in this age of pictures, has
not at least a faint conception of a Grecian beauty?
Who that has examined the Italian copies of the
Greek artists, or that has seen only the imitations
imported to this country, and suspended in our muscums and athenaeums, has not even a vivid idea of
a belle of Athens? Indeed, we have only to read
one or two of the popular authors of that day, and
the Grecian female stands before us in full life and
action.
The belle of Athens offered to tile eye a figure
very different from that of a modern belle of Paris,
New York, or Boston. The one sought health, and
the natural bloom of health, and a full development
of her person. The other seeks at least the pallor of
disease, depending on the brush for the proper tints,
and miserably distorting her natural figure in the
most vital parts. In the Grecian beauty, nature was
all predominant; in the European and American, art
universally prevails; and the art, such as it is, is devoted to purposes the most destructive to human
health and happiness. It is annually diminishing
the vigor and longevity of the race. Besides, a
modern city belle is a caricature on woman.
When first I saw the Venus de Medicis of the celebrated Canova, it seemed to me that the human
form couTl never have been so perfect. The artist,
I thought, must have drawn too largely on his imagination, and given us a specimen of what the race
ought to be, rather than what it is. But on seeing,
several years afterward, a German girl of about seventeen years of age, then recently from the fatherland, in all the fair and full proportions of untortured nature, and in all the beauty and bloom of
untrammeled health, the truthfulness of the immortal sculptor became a settled conviction in my mind.
But Germany cannot be compared with Greece.
The manners of the Germans, from the days of
Tacitus till now, have been too coarse, and the
SKETCHES.
female has been too roughly handled, to produce
the most perfect models of natural beauty. Their
habits of out-door exercise are highly conducive to
the full development of the female form; but German field labor does nothing toward heightening the
personal charms of woman.
Aspasia was born on the shores of the AEgean
Sea, the most beautiful country, and that blessed
with the most delicate climate in the world. The
customs of the country were exactly adapted to the
full expansion of her physical being. It was the
land, also, of philosophy, poetry, and song. Thales,
the father of the Socratic school, and Homer, the
master poet of the past, and Apelles, the most graceful painter of his age, and Parrhasius, the unrivaled
delineator of life and manners, and many more
whose names I have not space to mention, were all
the countrymen of this celebrated woman. She
lived, from infancy, in the midst of scenes and society sufficient to call out and perfect every female
charm. The bland airs from the Euxine, after having breathed a thousand tender strains through the
groves and gardens covering the flowery banks of
the Propontis, wafted health and fragrance along
the green shores of the Egean. It is easy to imagine Aspasia, engaged in some of those domestic arts
in which the Grecian ladies excelled, sitting under
the long corridor on the shaded side of her father's
mansion in Miletus, inhaling the sweet breezes as
they come, at the same time profoundly meditating
some of those splendid philosophical theories, in
which she afterward became the teacher of philosophers themselves.
It is not difficult to discover the taste of a nation,
or of an individual, especially of a female, by their
dress. Beginning with the savage, who delights in
high contrasts and gaudy colors, in spotted robes and
silver bands, in every thing showy and striking to
the sense, we gradually ascend till we reach the
truly cultivated and refined, whose apparel may be
beautiful but not ostentatious, rich but not gay,
neat without being finical, and striking only for its
fitness, propriety, and taste. The uncultivated mind
desires to make a show; the refined sees nothing so
beautiful as modesty; and this modesty, both of apparel and appearance, is, after all, the ruling charm
of woman's loveliness, and the real talisman of all
her success.
It is easy, then, to conceive what kind of an appearance the lovely Aspasia must have made. With
her perfectly developed form, her neat and tasteful
dress, her round full head, her black flashing eyes,
her light olive cheek, dimpled by the fullness of
health, with every facial curve expressly turned, as
it would seem, by the hand divine, and all lighted
up by the fire of an intellect created to instruct her
age, she must have been regarded as a superior being
in whatever sphere she moved. If our eyes had
ever beheld the original creations of the chisel of