4 FALLING IN LOVE 



perience shows us that, in nine cases out of ten, it is a 

 reciprocal affection, that is to say, in other words, an 

 affection roused in unison by varying qualities in the re- 

 spective individuals. 



Of its eminently conservative and even upward tendency 

 very little doubt can be reasonably entertained. We do 

 fall in love, taking us in the lump, with the young, the 

 beautiful, the strong, and the healthy ; we do not fall in 

 love, taking us in the lump, with the aged, the ugly, the 

 feeble, and the sickly. The prohibition of the Church is 

 scarcely needed to prevent a man from marrying his grand- 

 mother. Moralists have always borne a special grudge to 

 pretty faces ; but, as Mr. Herbert Spencer admirably put it 

 (long before the appearance of Darwin's selective theory), 

 'the saying that beauty is but skin-deep is itself but a 

 skin-deep saying.' In reality, beauty is one of the very 

 best guides we can possibly have to the desirability, so far 

 as race-preservation is concerned, of any man or any 

 woman as a partner in marriage. A fine form, a good 

 figure, a beautiful bust, a round arm and neck, a fresh 

 complexion, a lovely face, are all outward and visible signs 

 of the physical qualities that on the whole conspire to 

 make up a healthy and vigorous wife and mother; they 

 imply soundness, fertility, a good circulation, a good 

 digestion. Conversely, sallowness and paleness are roughly 

 indicative of dyspepsia and anaemia ; a flat chest is a 

 symptom of deficient maternity ; and what we call a bad 

 figure is really, in one way or another, an unhealthy de- 

 parture from the central norma and standard of the race. 

 Good teeth mean good deglutition ; a clear eye means an 

 active liver ; scrubbiness and undersizedness mean feeble 

 virility. Nor are indications of mental and moral efficiency 

 by any means wanting as recognised elements in personal 

 beauty. A good-humoured face is in itself almost pretty, 



