THE EXPRESSION OF THE PASSIONS. 



489 



to inflict retaliation on an assailant. In the attractive feelings or passions, 

 tliey are perhaps, for the most part, instinctive signs alone : for tlie natural 

 ] anguage of dimples, smiles, laughter, a lively, sparkling eye, or that soft- 

 ened outline, and uniform sweep of the whole figure which everyone 

 knows to be indicative of tranquillity and repose, is so clear to every one, 

 that he who runneth may read it, and be assured of finding a contented 

 and happy companion, if not a propitious season for a suit the heart is 

 set upon. And although in a few of the repulsive passions, as rage, terror, 

 and revenge, I have already given examples of their being mixed modes, 

 in the greater number of even this last class they are probably as simple 

 instincts as in the whole of the former. For what other use than that of 

 mere instinctive indications can we possibly assign to tears, sighs, frowns, 

 erection of the hair of the head, or the dead paleness, shivering, and hor- 

 ripilation, the creeping cold, that m.akes the multitude of the bones to 

 tremble, under the influence of severe terror or dismay ? 



In all this, there is one fact peculiarly worthy of attention ; and that is, 

 the admirable simplicity which runs through the whole ; so that the same 

 muscles are not unfrequently made use of to produce different and even 

 opposite effects : and this, too, by variations, and shades of variations, so 

 slight, that it is difficult, and in some cases almost impossible, to sei2:e them 

 with the pencil. When Peter of Cortona 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 witli 

 the exact representation of a child in the act of crying. " Has your ma- 

 jesty," 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 depressing 

 the corner of the lips and inner extremity of the eyebrows which be- 

 fore were elevated, made the little urchin, v/hich at first seemed breaking 

 its heart with weeping, seem equally in danger of bursting i'lS sides with 

 immoderate laughter. After which, with the same ease, he restored the 

 figure to its proper passion of sorrow. 



The nerves that influence the expression take their rise almost entirely 

 from one common quarter, the medulla oblongata, or that lower portion 

 of the brain from which the spinal marrow immediately issues and as 

 all their chief ramifications sissociate in the act of respiration, we can 

 readily see why the lungs, the heart, and the chest, in general, should so 

 strikingly participate in all the changes of expression, and work up alter- 

 nately sighs, crying, laughter, convulsions, and suffocation,! 



I have said, that under the repulsive passions the muscles and features 

 are for ever on the stretch ; though the tension is often irregular and alter- 



* See Ser. I. Lect. XV. 



t This subject has been of late perspicuously and admirably pursued by Mr. Bel!, in a se- 

 ries of communications to the Philosophical Transactions, and especially in tiie Voluine for 

 1822, p. 284, who closes his remarks as follows : To those I f(ddress, it is unnecessary to 

 go further than to indicate that the nerves treated of in these papers are the instruments 

 OF EXPP^ESSION, from the smile upon the infant's cheek to the last agony of life. It is when 

 the strong man is subdued, by this mysterious influence of soul and body, and when (he pas- 

 sions may be truly said to tear the breast, that we have the most afflictins^ picture of 

 human frailty and the most unequivocal proof that it is the ordf r of functions which we 

 have been considering that is then affected. In the first struggles of the iiifant to draw breath, 

 In the man recovering from a state of suffocation, and in the agony of passion, wben the breast 

 labours from the influence at the heart, the same system of parts is affected — the same nerves, 

 the same muscles ; and the symptoms or characters have a strict resemblance. These are 

 not the organs of breathing merely, but of natural and articulate language also, and adapted 

 to the expression of sentiment, in the workings of the eountenanf e and of the breast ; that 

 js, by signs as well as by words." 



