Chap. XII. ASTONISHMENT. 2S7 



man, as I neglected to make inquiries on this head. That 

 it is innate or natural may be inferred from the fact that 

 Laura Bridgman, when amazed, " spreads her arms and 

 turns her hands with extended fingers upwards; " xx nor 

 is it likely, considering that the feeling of surprise is gen- 

 erally a brief one, that she should have learnt this ges- 

 ture through her keen sense of touch. 



Huschke describes 12 a somewhat different yet allied 

 gesture, which he says is exhibited by persons when 

 astonished. They hold themselves erect, with the fea- 

 tures as before described, but with the straightened 

 arms extended backwards — the stretched fingers being 

 separated from each other. I have never myself seen 

 this gesture; but Huschke is probably correct; for a 

 friend asked another man how he would express great 

 astonishment, and he at once threw himself into tins 

 attitude. 



These gestures are, I believe, explicable on the prin- 

 ciple of antithesis. We have seen that an indignant 

 man holds his head erect, squares his shoulders, turns 

 out his elbows, often clenches his fist, frowns, and closes 

 his mouth; whilst the attitude of a helpless man is in 

 every one of these details the reverse. Now, a man in an 

 ordinary frame of mind, doing nothing and thinking 

 of nothing in particular, usually keeps his two arms sus- 

 pended laxly by his sides, with his hands somewhat 

 flexed, and the fingers near together. Therefore, to 

 raise the arms suddenlv, either the whole arms or the 

 fore-arms, to open the palms flat, and to separate the 



11 Lieber, ' On the Vocal Sounds,' &c, ibid. p. 7. 



12 Huschke, ' Mimices et Physiognomices,' 1821, p. 18. 

 Gratiolet (De la Phys. p. 255) gives a figure of a man in this 

 attitude, which, however, seems to me expressive of fear 

 combined with astonishment. Le Brun also refers (Lava- 

 ter, vol. ix. p. 299) to the hands of an astonished man being 

 opened. 



