in the lines before it shows in the colors. The condition of beauty in the lines of the human body is that they should incline toward curvature and roundness in women, and toward straightness, or the forming of angles, in men. The beautiful face is the one that broadens at the forehead and tapers at the chin, thus according with the spindle-like shape of the body as a whole. Its opposite is the face that narrows at the forehead and widens at the jaws: a face of ugly lines, because it contradicts the general shape of the body.
Every part of the parts of a work of art, or of a picture, or of a person, is considered beautiful not by itself but in the measure of its accord with the remaining parts. Black hair is beautiful, but it grows more beautiful when it frames a white face, forming with it the beauty of contrast. A slender leg is beautiful when it joins a slender body, and the reverse when it carries a bulky one.
How does the beautiful come to be a source of rest and pleasure? Because the harmony among its parts produces a like harmony in the soul, which then feels relief and expansion. The disfigurers of beauty are many; the chief of them are confusion, disorder, and discord: discord in lines, colors, and sounds; disorder of movements in face and body; heaviness of gait and loss of balance. Among its disfigurers, too, is lack of variety, or harping upon a single string — the one unchanging tone that breeds boredom. A piece of music lacking in variation is tedious; so is the dance that runs on a single pattern, the poem with its unvaried rhyme, and the dress of uniform lines and parts.
Another disfigurer of beauty is excess: excess in ornamentation, for example, tires the beholder and confuses the mind. That is why the painter leaves a space between the frame and the subject of the canvas, so that the viewer's eye may rest by pausing upon the empty space after it has finished examining the central subject.
This rule — the rule of economy in embellishment and of abundance in spaces restful to the eye — holds true of every work of art, whether
it be a canvas or a building, a face or a dress, furniture, verse, or prose. The ancient Greeks grasped this rule, and so contented themselves with ornamenting the borders of the garment and the edges of the building. And just as excess is deplored in things of the senses, so it is deplored in things of the spirit: excess in sentiment, for example, or in obscurity and mystification; the literature that overdoes delicacy and softness, or agitation and vehemence; the music that is limp
and effeminate, or wild and violent; and the poetry that carries obscurity and difficulty too far.
Excess is one of the manifestations of affectation, which is the placing of things out of their proper places and the violation of the law of moderation. Among the manifestations of affectation also are imitation, absence of individuality, exaggeration that repels, flattery, and lying that offends — the product of beginner artists who lack skill, grace, taste, and mastery.
A child needs companions not only for his personal happiness, but also for the development of his mental powers. It is futile for parents to take the place of companions, because of the authority parents impose on their children, because the two sides' outlooks on life conflict, and because of the small number of the parents — that is, they are only two, and do not represent society, which is a mixture of many people, each with his own nature and his own personality.
We often hear mothers complaining of their child's shyness and laying the responsibility on nature; in this way they find an excuse for not giving him the proper social guidance. A mother breeds shyness in her child through her attitude toward him, her words, and her dealings with him, just as she can lessen his shyness by conscious training. She should introduce him to companions to play with — and beware of confining him to a single companion who surpasses her child in strength or intelligence, for he will dominate him and prove his weakness to him.
Democracy is the principle children follow in their dealings with others, for to them there is no difference between a rich child and a poor one, a clever one and a simple one. Parents should not concern themselves with these distinctions or reflect their attachment to them onto their children — unless the companion, God forbid, is of unwholesome character, in which case they must keep him away from their child and discover the reasons that make him play with him: is it merely that he is a neighbor, or does he seek him out for some other reason?
A child usually takes age into account in choosing his companions, and this is a sound theory; for if his companions are older than he is, he strains his mental and physical powers to reach their level of knowledge and experience, and so long as he fails to reach his goal because of his young age, he may come to feel a sense of inferiority — and this feeling, if it persists long, weakens his personality. And just as keeping company with older companions is harmful to the child, keeping company with younger companions is equally harmful; for what is asked of a child of seven is not what is asked of a child of three, for example — yet the child, in keeping company with a friend younger than himself, is ignorant of this fact, and thereby lowers his own morale.