Jonathan and His Continent - 1889 Author:Max O'Rell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Types.—Manly Beauty.—The Indian Type.—Second, Beauty in the Women of the New World.—Something Wanting in the Beauty of Most American Women. ... more » 1H E American men are generally thin. Their faces glow with intelligence and energy, and in this mainly consists their handsomeness. I do not think it can be possible to see anywhere a finer assemblage of men than that which meets at the Century Club of New York every first Saturday of the month. It is not male beauty such as the Greeks portrayed it, but a manly beauty in all its intellectual force. The hair, often abundant, is neglige, sometimes even almost disordered-looking; the dress displays taste and care without aiming at elegance; the face is pale and serious, but lights up with an amiable smile: you divine that resolution and gentleness live in harmony in the American character. The features are bony, the forehead straight, the nose sharp and often pinched-looking in its thinness. One seems at times to recognise in the faces something of the Indian type: the temples indented, the cheek-bones prominent, the eyes small, keen, and deepset The well-bred American is, to my mind, a happy combination of the 'Frenchman and the Englishman,having less stiffness than the latter, and more simplicity than the former. As for the women, I do not hesitate to say that in the east, in New York especially, they might be taken for Frenchwomen. It is the same type, the same gait, the same vivacity, the same petulance, the same amplitude of proportions. The beauty of the American women, like that of the men, is due much more to the animation of the face than to form or colouring. The average of good looks is very high, indeed. I do not remember to have seen one hopelessly plain woman during my six months' ramble in the St...« less