PHYSIOGNOMIC CURIOSITIES. 821 



symptom of failing vitality ; very heavy eyebrows, on the contrary, 

 he takes to be a mark of redundant potency and reserved strength. 

 " Eyebrows which join each other," Lavater remarks, " were consid- 

 ered among the ancients as a sign of a fallen character," but he him- 

 self inclines to Goethe's opinion that they denote energische Slnnllch- 

 keity which does not exactly mean sensuality, but rather active vigor 

 of all the senses. The deficiency or abundance of eyebrow-hair he 

 holds to be a physical rather than mental symptom, but owns that he 

 "never saw a profound thinker, or even a man of a firm and judicious 

 mind, with slender eyebrows, placed very high." 



As to the eyes themselves, opinions differ to a rather perplexing 

 degree. Their protuberance Gall, Lavater, and Fowler hold to be a 

 mark of a retentive memory and language, i. e., fluency of speech, 

 while Winckelmann and the Latin sages consider it as a sign of stu- 

 pidity. A large eye the Greeks admired as the token of a large soul, 

 but Gall and Dr. Carus see in it nothing but a large share of curiosity. 

 The horizontal extension of the eye, if abnormal, Lavater suspects to 

 be an indication of a designing mind ; Redfield of excessive caution. 



Their color, too, has been interpreted in very different ways. The 

 ancients of Southern Europe, of course, preferred their own black 

 eyes, and depreciated every lighter shade as sickly or even unnatural ; 

 but already, before their final subjugation by the Goths, they had 

 learned to make an exception in favor of a blue iris, and we are told 

 that, at last, even the dandies of the Roman capital envied the bright 

 blue eyes and brown locks of Alaric. Gray and light blue, according 

 to Le Brun, indicate coldness, but a German rhymed proverb calls a 

 blue eye a pledge of good faith, and associates a gray one with deceit- 

 fulness. Brown, according to the same doggerel, bespeaks love of fun 

 and mischievous merriment, while Spurzheim informs us that he found 

 that color generally combined with a good-natured disposition. Only 

 in regard to red eyes all nations and doctors agree : they are a sure 

 sign of staminal weakness and degeneration. 



In a treatise on physiognomy, the nose deserves a special chapter. 

 " There is infinite expressiveness in every bone and every muscle of 

 that prominent organ," says Sir Charles Bell, and proceeds to give us 

 a long list of " indications," which may be summarized in the general 

 remarks that he considers a long and pointed nose a sign of foxy sly- 

 ness, a broad, short one a mark of a plain, practical mind, and Cal- 

 muck nostrils a symptom of frog-like stupidity. Redfield, too, locates 

 " inquisitiveness " at the tip of the nose, and critical acumen in the 

 next neighborhood, and quotes Aristotle, who speaks of the critical 

 resources of a powerful and pointed proboscis. 



In Seneca's language, an Athenian nose is a synonym for wit ; and 

 Horace introduces a wide-awake individual as a homo enunctissimaz 

 naris, a man whq^e nasal ducts are in first-rate working order. Plato 

 records his respect for a man with a royal nose, an article of which he 



