GENIUS AND HAIR-COLOR 287 



in this field — announces it as his opinion, in the Medical Record for 

 August 7, 1909, that in America, at least, " the criminal is more often 

 fair than dark." This but gives point to the observation of Ellis that 

 " to the existing statistics of the color of hair among criminals, taken 

 as a whole, it is not possible at present to attach much value. There is 

 no uniform system of description or nomenclature; it is difficult to 

 make full allowance for ethnic divergence and there rarely exists an 

 adequate standard of comparison for normal persons of corresponding 

 race." 



It is, however, not in the use of the hair as a social and religious 

 symbol, nor in its aspect as a mark of race or token of criminality 

 that the inquiry in hand makes its highest appeal. It is in the relation 

 of the form and color of the hair to talent and genius that the absorbing 

 interest of this subject lies. Is it the light-haired or the dark-haired 

 person who is likeliest to display marked power of intellect? Does 

 straight or spiral hair point most often to capacity? Do soft and stiff 

 hair speak the same or a varying message as to the character and mental 

 endowments of the owner ? 



Upon this phase of the subject the decisive testimony must come 

 from the pages of biography. Nothing less than a test of the question 

 by the facts of life may fairly make a claim upon our time and atten- 

 tion. True it is that biographers have not always preserved for us these 

 details of physiognomy, nor do biographers of the same individual 

 always agree as to the points of figure and feature; yet enough exists 

 that is authentic to serve as a basis for a few modest generalizations. 



Seeing the predominance of blue and gray and bluish-gray eyes 

 among persons of distinction, as determined in the discussion of 

 physiognomy as related to genius in the February issue, 1911, of this 

 magazine, it might have seemed just to expect that the hair-color of 

 eminent men would be fair. In reality, however, the case is otherwise. 

 The hair-color of celebrated personages, in so far as the result of our 

 investigation may justify us in speaking, has usually been dark. 



Classified as " dark " we find the hair of Browning, Eufus Choate, 

 Alexander Dumas the elder, fm. Hazlitt (another authority says 

 black) Washington Irving (other authorities say "chestnut brown"), 

 Landor, Francis Parkman, Eossetti, E. L. Stevenson, Martin Van 

 Buren, Tennyson and Mendelssohn, the hair of the last being almost 

 black. 



As possessed of black hair we have the names of Matthew Arnold, 

 S. T. Coleridge, Stephen A. Douglas, Sir Thomas More (black shot 

 with yellow), Wm. Hazlitt (another authority says "dark"), Leigh 

 Hunt (shining black), Ibsen, Paul Jones, Charles Lamb, John Mar- 

 shall, Washington Alston, Daniel Webster, J. G. Whittier, Sir Arthur 

 Sullivan. 



Given as brown we have the hair of William Cullen Bryant (dark 



