56 EXPRESSION. 



confidence which seems to say, " You and I 

 understand." 



There appears to me to be one exception to the 

 rule that a downward face and upward eye give the 

 idea of concealment ; and it is in mental absorption 

 when the head happens to be bent forwards and 

 the eyes staring into space. Yet it is an exception 

 more apparent than real, the glance having less 

 the appearance of proceeding from the face than of 

 having quitted it altogether. What catches the 

 eye most in such circumstances is the relaxation, 

 the absence of expression, from the mind being too 

 much occupied with its musing to devote attention 

 to attitude or feature. The head only bends when 

 the relaxation of the previous attitude allows it to 

 fall forwards ; and it falls as readily backwards 

 when the attitude has been favourable to that 

 movement. The eyes also are probably nearly in 

 the position of muscular inaction. In the dead the 

 position of the eyes is more turned upwards than 

 they would be in looking directly forwards during 

 life, and their strange stare seems to depend less on 

 the perfect movelessness than on a slight divergence 

 of their axes. Further, it is known that the condi- 

 i on of rest of the adjustments within the eyeball is 

 when the focus is set for the infinitely distant, 

 which requires the axes of the eyes to be parallel ; 



