376 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to be fair, while the more reflective and emotional classes tend to be 

 dark,* 



There is another physical characteristic to which the national bi- 

 ographers frequently allude, though I do not propose to attempt to give 

 it any numerical values, and that is personal beauty or the absence of 

 it. A very large proportion of persons are referred to as notably hand- 

 some, comely, imposing; a very considerable, but smaller, proportion 

 are spoken of as showing some disproportion or asymmetry of feature, 

 body or limbs, as notably peculiar or even ludicrous in appearance. A 

 not uncommon type is that of the stunted giant, with massive head and 

 robust body, but very short legs. 



There is one feature, however, which is noted as striking and 

 beautiful in a very large number of cases, even in persons who are 

 otherwise wholly without physical attractions. That is the eyes. It 

 is nearly always found that descriptions of the personal appearance 

 of men of genius, however widely they may differ in other respects, 

 agree in finding an unusual brilliancy of the eyes. Thus the eyes of 

 Burns were said by one observer to be like ^coals of living fire,' and 

 Scott writes that they 'literally glowed'; while of Chatterton's eyes it 

 was said that there was 'fire rolling at the bottom of them.' It is 

 significant that both of these instances, chosen almost at random, were 

 poets. While, however, the phenomenon seems to be noted more fre- 

 quently and with more emphasis in poets, it is found among men of 

 genius of all classes. One can only suppose it to be connected with an 

 unusual degree of activity of the cerebral circulation. 



In regard to the mental and emotional disposition of British per- 

 sons of genius, the national biographers enable us to trace the preva- 

 lence of one or two tendencies. One of these is shjoiess, bashfulness 

 or timidity. This is noted in thirty-four cases, while thirty-two others 

 are described as very sensitive, nervous or emotional, and, although this 

 is not equivalent to a large percentage, it must of course be remembered 

 that the real number of such cases is certainly very much larger, 

 and also that the characteristic is in many cases extremely well marked. 

 Some had to abandon the profession they had chosen on account of 

 their nervous shyness at appearing in public; others were too bashful 

 to declare their love to the women they were attracted to; Sir Thomas 



*I may remark concerning this index of pigmentation that, while it yields 

 results which are strictly comparable among themselves in the hands of a single 

 observer, proceeding in a uniform manner, it is doubtful whether two observers 

 would carry it out in a strictly identical manner. Beddoe's index of nigrescence, 

 foimded on hair-color and applied directly to living subjects, is a convenient 

 formula for indicating the degree of pigmentation. But in my observations, 

 largely made on portraits (in which the hair was often whitened by age, absent, 

 concealed beneath a wig, or obscured by the darkening of the paint), it was 

 necessary to accept eye-color as the primary basis of classification. 



