Henry James and OK Cupid make for an unusual match. But the online dating site recently released statistical findings that confirm, more than a century later, James's observation of what made certain women particularly beguiling.
In his 1880 novel Portrait of a Lady, James describes his inexpressibly intriguing heroine, Isabel Archer, in comparison to her more traditionally beautiful older sister Edith:
Nineteen persons out of twenty (including the younger sister herself) pronounced Edith infinitely the prettier of the two; but the twentieth, besides reversing this judgment, had the entertainment of thinking all the others aesthetic vulgarians.In other words, the physical allure of Isabel is not that she's universally considered beautiful, but that she is considered extremely beautiful by a minority that recognizes that most people wouldn't agree--and gets a little puff of confident self-satisfaction from that very fact.
If only more online daters read James. OK Cupid's blog (and informal statistical wing), OK Trends, recently announced results that suggest that the Jamesian prescription holds true for profile pictures: women who post pictures that prompt widespread disagreement about their beauty actually get substantially more messages than traditionally attractive women.
Maybe OK Cupid's stats aren't exactly rigorous science, but they're interesting. I'm still willing to classify this as a literary insight belatedly discovered by science...someone call Jonah Lehrer.
