with the Venus—the proportions alone strike the eye, and the mind,
"Dazzled and drunk with beauty,"
immediately pictures that lovely figure in every attitude which the human form is capable of assuming. Disastrous results always follow a continued pressure on the vital organs, and a little reflection will prove that no such constrained position could be maintained for any length of time without producing injurious results.
The more striking distinctions between the perfect male and female form may be easily perceived. The bones of the female are lighter, softer, and more elegantly shaped than those of the male. The female head is smaller, the pelvis is broader and deeper, and the cavity of the acetabulum less deeply sunk than in man. The neck of the thigh-bone is shorter and more sloping in man than in woman, and in him, therefore, the basis of support is greater, and is more immediately in the centre of gravity. The femurs being further apart, and the knees closer in woman, diminishes the base of support, and imparts a peculiar rolling motion to her progression; hence, walking is more difficult in woman than in man, and cannot be so long continued. The stature of woman is about two or three inches below that of man, and her muscles are less projecting—partly because they are smaller and less powerful, and partly from their fatty covering, which contributes so much to the rounded and undulating outline of her form. The breast and haunches of the male and female are in inverse proportion—the chest being broad and the hips narrow in the former, the reverse in the latter; or, in other words, if a plumb-line be let fall from the points of the shoulders of both, the hips of the woman would project beyond the line, while those of the man would fall considerably within it. Again, when in a recumbent posture on the back, the breast of the man will be the highest part, but the pubes in the woman. The female loins are also the broadest, and the hollow of her back the greatest, in order that the due inclination may be given to the pelvis.
Everyone of the particulars mentioned above must be taken into consideration in any attempt to adjust the dress to the body, so as to develop its beauty and proportions; and it must be borne in mind too, that it is that beauty and those proportions which all our efforts must
