PHYSIOGNOMIC CURIOSITIES. 67 



fully ugly that he found it easy to pass for a superhuman or subter- 

 human being. His next neighbors, the original Huns, were actually 

 believed to derive their origin from a diabolical liaison of the Scythian 

 witches ; such at least was the theory of the Visigoths, who, barbarians 

 though they were, enjoyed more than the average share of physical 

 beauty, and were altogether overcome by the aspect of those Turanian 

 fiends. " In many a battle," says Jornandes, " the warriors who had 

 withstood the onset of the Roman legions were seized with a name- 

 less terror and put to instant flight by the sight of those male Me- 

 dusas." 



" Hatred at first sight is no impossibility. I know that from per- 

 sonal experience," says Charles Lamb, " and I can believe the story of 

 two persons meeting, who never saw one another before, and instantly 

 fighting." Marshal Vendome was so ugly that he avoided going near 

 a looking-glass. But once, on entering a tent that had been furnished 

 by proxy, he found a mirror over the wash-stand and could not resist 

 the temptation to have a good look at himself. But, as he looked, his 

 hand stole to his belt, and with a muttered curse and " Quelle figure ! '" 

 he broke the glass with a pistol-shot. La Maintenon had seen him 

 only once in her life, and ever afterward persecuted him with the ran- 

 cor of a personal enemy, and used to refer to his person as "ce cochon 

 d deux bottes." 



But there is also such a thing as love at first sight, and in Schopen- 

 hauer's theory of sexual selection many of its apparent caprices have 

 been explained with ultra-Baconian ingenuity. " The ultimate object 

 of all love-dramas," says he, " is really more important than all other 

 human concernments whatever, and fully worthy of the deep earnest 

 of the actors. For what they decide is nothing less than the composi- 

 tion of the next generation. The apparently frivolous whims of Amor 

 determine the physical and moral peculiai'ities of the dramatis personce 

 who shall mount the stage after we are gone. The sexual instinct,jer 

 se, only guarantees the perpetuity of the species ; our erotic caprices 

 determine the qualities of its representatives. ... In regard to the 

 human species the importance of this perpetual selection is enhanced by 

 the perpetual necessity of counteracting the influence of degenerative 

 agencies. Nature continually strives to correct all deviations from the 

 standard of her normal types, and thus assists the survival of the 

 fittest by preventing the birth of the most unfit. The metaphysical 

 rationale of passionate love is, therefore, the instinctive perception of 

 an opportunity to counteract individual abnormities, to neutralize them 

 in a being of the next generation. Unless circumstances limit the 

 scope of selection, every one chooses his or her physiological comple- 

 ment. A small man prefers a large woman, and vice versa ; the man- 

 liest man the most feminine female, while weaklings are apt to admire 

 a strong-minded woman. Pale blondes dote on a dark complexion, 

 blonde and whitish hair being, properly speaking, an abnormity, analo- 



