COUNTENANCE INDEX OF MIND.
Talleyrand was wont to say, that speech was given to man for the purpose of concealing his thoughts. Among mankind in general the countenance may, with equal force, be said to represent a series of hieroglyphics by which the internal emotions of the mind may be readily deciphered. Observe a child thrown for the first time among a number of strangers. To some it will immediately, and as it were instinctively, attach itself, while to others it will manifest the greatest repugnance and dislike. Such first impressions are not the result of reasoning, they spring from the quickness of perception peculiar to childhood; and the choice is in general not the less happy, although the reason may have had no effect in determining it. With a rapid glance a mere infant will seize the prevailing expression of the physiognomy, and detect at once the mental constitution of those by whom it is surrounded; for pride and impatience, and kindness and benevolence, are written on the plastic countenance in broad legible characters, though the many, with their blunted perceptions, may, to a certain extent, have lost the key to their solution. Contrast the expression of the physiognomy of some of the more celebrated among the ancients, as exemplified in the collection of antique busts preserved in the museum of the Capitol at Rome. Compare the broad open brow and finely-chiselled features of Trajan, or the beauty, majesty, and grace expressed in the countenance of either of the Antonines, with the coarse, heavy, animal face of Vitellius, or the dull, morose expression of Caligula or of Commodus,—
————“Without a ray
Of mind, that makes each feature play
Like sparkling waves on a sunny day.”
The difference is as striking as that which we know from daily observation to exist between the face of a rogue and that of an honest man; indeed, we are disposed to believe, with Benjamin Franklin, “that if rogues knew the advantages attached to the practices of the virtues, they would become honest men from mere roguery.” It was for this reason, probably, that beauty of form and proportion were so highly prized by the ancients; and when they prayed the gods to grant them the beautiful with the good, was it not because by experience they had found that in fact they were most frequently associated? In support of this position, we may cite the authority of Bacon, who, in his Essay on Beauty, remarks, “that Augustus Cæsar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of France, Edward IV. of England, Alcibiades of Athens, and Ismael the sophi of Persia, were all high and great spirits, and yet the most beautiful men of their time.” Again, the physiognomy of the passions affords us further proof that the emotions of the mind betray themselves by peculiar corporeal phenomena,—each having, as it were, its own proper dialect. Notice the expression of the passions which follow each other in such quick succession, and are so forcibly depicted upon the mobile countenance of an infant, even before any voluntary movements can be executed by the feeble and powerless limbs. Look at a coward, his countenance blanched, and almost cadaverous,—the heavy limbs drooping and powerless,—the instruments of life paralysed, as though the fountain of existence were suddenly dried up. For grief, take the testimony of Byron, where he describes its effects in producing
“The intersected lines of thought,—
Those furrows which the burning share
Of sorrow ploughs untimely there,—
Scars of the lacerated mind
Which the soul’s war doth leave behind.”
Regard a man under the influence of a sublime or heroic thought, with his head proudly elevated and nostrils dilated,—he raises himself to his utmost height; while, at the idea of infinity, or the prospect of a boundless expanse, the arms are involuntarily extended as though he would soar away into unlimited space. The impress of pride is stamped in the bold erect bearing, and that of fear in the drooping head and timid step. So true is it that joy and sorrow, love and hate, pain and pleasure, virtue and vice, all betray themselves by their organic signs, that when any of these affections are habitual, or frequently recur, their external manifestations become permanently marked in the form; and it is in this sense that the habits and emotions of early youth stamp the lineaments with a character never to be effaced, or which, in many cases at least, are destined to endure through life. Are we not then justified in concluding, that the kind and degree of mental developement,—the presiding thought,—the ruling and predominating principle of life, is influenced by the physical temperament and constitution, and that this latter is in its turn reacted upon by the mind?