THE HUMAN NOSE 



55 



continue to believe in a recipe made up of struggle 



for existence, adaptation to environment, and natural 



selection quantum suf. ? If I 



could dine with that monkey, 



ask it to drink a glass of wine 



with me, offer it a pinch of snuff 



and so on, I might come in time 



to feel, if not to comprehend, 



the import of its nose. 



But one step further is required 

 for the evolution of what we may 

 call the human nose, and that is 

 a solid foundation, a ridge of 

 bone connecting it with the brow 

 and separating the eyes from 

 each other. I believe that the 

 completeness of this is a fair 

 index of the comparative advancement of different 

 races of men. In the Greek ideal of a perfect face 

 the profile forms a straight line from the top of the 

 forehead to the tip of the nose. This is the type of 

 face which painters have delighted to give to the 

 Virgin Mary ; and, when looking at their Madonnas, 

 one cannot help wondering whether they forgot that 

 Mary was a Jewess. According to the Hebrew ideal, 

 a perfect nose was like " the tower of Lebanon which 

 looketh toward Damascus " (Song of Solomon, vii. 

 4) ; but not even the ruins of that tower remain to 

 help us to-day. The Romans, no doubt, accepted 

 the ideal of the Greeks aesthetically, but their destiny 

 11 



WHO CAN CONSIDER THAT 

 NOSE SERIOUSLY ? 



