GESTURES CRYING. 501 



tion of blood in the vessels. The muscles of respiration are affected 

 from the commencement, and the return of blood from the head is 

 s6mewhat impeded. The muscles of the cheeks are in movement. 

 Those that depress the angles of the mouth are powerfully con- 

 tracted, and the orbicularis oris is not relaxed, but drawn open 

 by the predominant action of its opponents. A convulsive move- 

 ment in the muscles about the eyes attends ; the eyebrow is drawn 

 down ; the eyes are compressed by the eyelids ; the cheek is raised ; 

 the nostril drawn out, and the mouth stretched laterally. In weep- 

 ing, also, unless the convulsive movement of the muscles is very 

 strong, the expression of grief affects that part of the eyebrows next 

 the nose. It is turned up with a peevish expression, which corresponds 

 with the depression of the corners of the mouth. This depression gives 

 an air of despondency and languor to the countenance, when accompa- 

 nied by general relaxation of the muscles. When the corrugator co- 

 operates, there is mingled in the expression something of mental energy, 

 moroseness, or pain. If the frontal muscle unites its action, an acute 

 turn upwards is given to the inner part of the eyebrow, very different 

 from the effect of the general action of the frontal muscle, and charac- 

 teristic of anguish, debilitating pain, or discontent, according to the 

 prevailing cast of the rest of the countenance. The depression, how- 

 ever, of the angle of the mouth, that indicates languor and despondency, 

 must be slight ; as the depressor anguli oris cannot act forcibly, with- 

 out the action of the superbus participating a muscle, which quickly 

 produces a revolution in the expression, and makes the under lip pout 

 contemptuously. 



The expression at the angles of the mouth demands the careful study 

 of the painter ; the most opposite characters being communicated to 

 the countenance by their elevation or depression. When Peter of Cor- 

 tona was engaged on a picture of the iron age for the royal palace of 

 Pitti, Ferdinand II., who often visited him, and witnessed the progress 

 of the piece, was particularly struck with the exact representation of a 

 child in the act of crying. " Has your majesty," said the painter, "a 

 mind to see how easy it is to make this very child laugh ?" The king 

 assented : and the artist, by merely elevating the corner of the lips and 

 inner extremity of the eyebrows, made the child, which at first seemed 

 breaking its heart with weeping, seem equally in danger of bursting its 

 sides with immoderate laughter, after which, with the same ease, he 

 restored to the figure its proper expression of sorrow. 1 



It is at the angle of the mouth and the inner extremity of the eye- 

 brow, that the expression which is peculiarly human is situate. These 

 are the most movable parts of the face. On them the muscles are con- 

 centrated, and it is upon their changes that expression is acknowledged 

 chiefly to depend. All the parts, however, of an impassioned counte- 

 nance are in accordance with each other. When the angles of the 

 mouth are depressed in grief, the eyebrows are not elevated at the outer 

 angles as in laughter. When a smile plays around the mouth, or when 

 the cheek is elevated in laughter, the eyebrows are not ruffled as in 



1 Good's Book of Nature, iii. 291, Lond., 1834. 



