elf in woman to man, are to be found at least three
fundamental elements: First there is the general beauty of the species as
it tends to culminate in the white peoples of European origin; then there
is the beauty due to the full development or even exaggeration of the
sexual and more especially the secondary sexual characters; and last there
is the beauty due to the complete embodiment of the particular racial or
national type. To make the analysis fairly complete must be added at least
one other factor: the influence of individual taste. Every individual, at
all events in civilization, within certain narrow limits, builds up a
feminine ideal of his own, in part on the basis of his own special
organization and its demands, in part on the actual accidental attractions
he has experienced. It is unnecessary to emphasize the existence of this
factor, which has always to be taken into account in every consideration
of sexual selection in civilized man. But its variations are numerous and
in impassioned lovers it may even lead to the idealization of features
which are in reality the reverse of beautiful. It may be said of many a
man, as d'Annunzio says of the hero of his _Trionfo della Morte_ in
relation to the woman he loved, that "he felt himself bound to her by the
real qualities of her body, and not only by those which were most
beautiful, but specially by _those which were least beautiful_" (the
novelist italicizes these words), so that his attention was fixed upon her
defects, and emphasized them, thus arousing within himself an impetuous
state of desire. Without invoking defects, however, there are endless
personal variations which may all be said to come within the limits of
possible beauty or charm. "There are no two women," as Stratz remarks,
"who in exactly the same way stroke back a rebellious lock from their
brows, no two who hold the hand in greeting in exactly the same way, no
two who gather up their skirts as they walk with exactly the same
movement."[166] Among the multitude of minute differences--which yet can
be seen and felt--the beholder is variously attracted or repelled
according to his own individual idiosyncrasy, and the operations of sexual
selection are effected accordingly.

Another factor in the constitution of the ideal of beauty, but one perhaps
exclusively found under civilized conditions, is the love of the unusual,
the remote, the exotic. It is commonly stated that rarity is admired in
beauty