"THE HUMAN FACE DIVINE." THE "Life hath its legend in every look.' HE face is to the man, what the title-page is to the book, or the dial is to the clock-an index of the interior. This is equally apparent in the facial variations of the lower animals. So self-evident is it, that it is scarcely necessary to cite illustrations of the fact. Who has not observed the physiognomy of animals? There is an expression in the eye of a mastiff that forbids familiarity, and a vacancy in the optics of an owl which is highly suggestive of judicial wisdom; there is a good-humored savageness about the lion, which must make it quite a comfort to be killed by the noble animal. Do not say you have not traced the physiognomical resemblance between a bullfrog and an alderman; at any rate, you must have noticed the difference between meek and savage cats; the lazy eye of the elephant is always a special attraction; he looks as if he thought his temporary confinement, for the purposes of exhibition, was an immense joke, and that he enjoyed it much, but really he was too indolent and monstrous to laugh. Plenty of instances of animal 127 physiognomy might be cited, but every one can instantly call up sufficient in his own memory to illustrate the subject. "No study," says Labater, "mathematics excepted, more justly deserves to be termed a science than physiognomy. It is a source of pure and exalted mental gratification. We all have some sort of intuitive method by which we form our opinions; and though our rules for judging of men from their appearance may often fail, we still continue to trust in them; and naturally feel surprised if a vacant-looking man should prove extremely sagacious, or a morose-looking one should give us evidence of his kind disposition by performing some generous and disinterested action. There is an almost universal standard of correspondencies between the external forms and the interior souls of men. Yet it is admitted, that the criteria by which we judge are, to some extent, liable to error, being controlled by the ever-varying circumstances and differences of the habits and idiosyncrasies of men." "Ye who know the reason, tell us How it is that instinct still Tell me by what hidden magic Into liking or disliking- Oft before a word be said! Why should smiles sometimes repel us? All that glitters is not gold? Oh-no feature plain or striking, But a power we cannot shun, A thousand forms of intuitional affinity are seen in nature; nor are they peculiar to mankind, for the domestic animals readily choose their human favorites in obedience to the same law. The great advocates of physiognomy and phrenology, Gall, Spurzheim, Lavater and Combe have either mapped off the human skull into square inches of distinct traits, propensities or passions; or have partitioned off the "human face divine." "We are no sooner presented to one we never saw before, but we are immediately struck with the idea of a proud, a reserved, an affable, or a good-natured man; and upon our first going into the company of strangers, our benevolence or aversion, awe or contempt, rises naturally towards several particular persons before we have heard them speak a single word, or so much as know who they are." * Cowper confessed he was very much of Lavater's opinion, "that faces are as legible as books, only with these circumstances to recommend them to our perusal, that they are read in much less time, and are much less likely to deceive us. Southey asserts that his skill in physiognomy had never deceived him. Bacon, Haller, Sir Thomas Browne, and many other celebrated writers, have expressed their faith in these correspondences of the outward form to the inner soul, and their delight in interpreting them. * Addison. "The body and the mind, the sign and the thing signified, do not correspond as effect to cause, but as things derived from a common origin, and planned with one design. They are in no relation of sequence, either to the other; nor is their correspondence the result of mutual sympathy; but one Divine mind having made them both, according to one idea, there is perfect congruity between them; the body is the image of the mind, and, in the visible, the invisible is revealed." "Without going so far as the Frenchman who maintained that speech was given to us to conceal our thoughts, it is certain that we may, even now, convey them pretty accurately without the intervention of the tongue. To a certain extent, everybody talks with his own countenance, and puts faith in the indications of those which he encounters. The basis of physiognomy-that the face is the silent, yet eloquent echo of the heart, is substantially true; and to confine ourselves to one feature-the eye-I would ask what language, what oratory can be more valuable and instinct with meaning than the telegraphic glances of the eye? I have always had a firm belief that the celestials have no other medium of conversation, but that carrying on a colloquy of glances, they avoid all the wear and tear of lungs, and all the vulgarity of human vociferation. Nay, we frequently do this ourselves. By a silent interchange of looks, when listening to a third party, how completely may two people keep up a by-play of conversation, and express their mutual incredulity, anger, disgust, contempt, amazement, grief, or languor. Speech is a laggard and a sloth, but the eyes shoot out an electric fluid that condenses all the elements of sentiment and passion in one single emanation. Conceive what a boundless range of feeling is included between the two extremes of the look serene and the smooth brow, and the contracted frown with the glaring eye. What varieties of sentiment in the mere fluctuation of its lustre from the fiery flash of indignation to the twinkle of laughter, the soft beaming of compassion and the melting radiance of love! 'Oculi sunt in amore duces,' says Propertius; and certainly he who has never known the tender passion, knows not half the copiousness of the ocular language, for it is in those prophetic mirrors that every lover first traces the reflection of his own attachment, or reads the secret of his rejection, long before it is promulgated by the tardy tongue."* "Every spirit as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight; For of the soul the body form doth take; The soul is form, and doth the body make." "The meaning of sounds are uncertain, and tied to particular times and places; but the language of the face is fixed and universal. Its consents and refusals are everywhere alike. A smile has the same form and sense in China as with us. If looks were as arbitrary *Horace Smith. |