Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



348 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



convexity of outline. In fact, it often renders a nose concave in 

 profile, immediately recognizable as Jewish. Jacobs * has ingen- 

 iously described this " nostrility," as he calls it, by the following 

 diagrams: Write, he says, a figure 6 with a long tail (Fig. 1); now 



remove the turn of the twist, 

 and much of the Jewishness dis- 

 appears; and it vanishes en- 

 tirely when we draw the lower 

 continuation horizontally, as in 

 Fig. 3. Behold the transforma- 

 tion! The Jew has turned 

 Roman beyond a doubt. What have we proved, then? That there 

 is in reality such a phenomenon as a Jewish nose, even though it 

 be differently constituted from our first assumption. A moment's 

 inspection of our series of portraits will convince the skeptic that this 

 trait, next to the prevalent dark hair and eyes and the swarthy skin, 

 is the most distinctive among the chosen people. 



Another characteristic of the Jewish physiognomy is the eyes. 

 The eyebrows, seemingly thick because of their darkness, appear to 

 be nearer together than usual, arching smoothly into the lines of the 

 nose. The lids are rather full, the eyes large, dark, and brilliant. A 

 general impression of heaviness is apt to be given. In favorable cases 

 this imparts a dreamy, melancholy, or thoughtful expression to the 

 countenance; in others it degenerates into a blinking, drowsy type; 

 or, again, Avith eyes half closed, it may suggest suppressed cunning. 

 The particular adjective to be applied to this expression varies greatly 

 according to the personal equation of the observer. Quite persistent 

 also is a fullness of the lips, often amounting in the lower one almost 

 to a pout. The chin in many cases is certainly rather pointed and 

 receding, Jacobs to the contrary notwithstanding. A feature of my 

 own observation, perhaps not fully justified, is a peculiar separation 

 of the teeth, which seem to stand well apart from one another. But 

 a truce to speculations. Entering into greater detail, the flat contra- 

 dictions of different observers show that they are vainly generalizing 

 from an all too narrow base of observations. Even the fancied dif- 

 ferences in feature between the two great branches of the Hebrew 

 people seem to us to be of doubtful existence. Our portraits do not 

 bear it out. It seems rather that the two descriptions of the Ashkena- 

 zim and Sephardim types which we have quoted denote rather the dis- 

 tinction between the faces of those of the upper and the lower classes. 

 Enough for us to know that there is a something Jewish in these 

 faces which we instantly detect. We recognize it in Eembrandt's 

 Hermitage, or in Munkaczy's Christ before Pilate. ISTot invariable 



* 1886 a, p. xxxii. 



