LETTER XX.
GENERAL BERTRAND—FRIEND OF LADY MORGAN—PHRENOLOGY—DR. SPURZHEIM—HIS LODGINGS—PROCESS OF TAKING A CAST OF THE HEAD—INCARCERATION OF DR. BOWRING AND DE POTTER—DAVID THE SCULPTOR—VISIT OF DR. SPURZHEIM TO THE UNITED STATES.
My room-mate called a day or two since on General Bertrand, and yesterday he returned the visit, and spent an hour at our lodgings. He talked of Napoleon with difficulty, and became very much affected when my friend made some inquiries about the safety of the body at St. Helena. The inquiry was suggested by some notice we had seen in the papers of an attempt to rob the tomb of Washington. The General said that the vault was fifteen feet deep, and covered by a slab that could not be moved without machinery. He told us that Madame Bertrand had many mementoes of the Emperor, which she would be happy to show us, and we promised to visit him.
At a party, a night or two since, I fell into conversation with an English lady, who had lived several years in Dublin, and was an intimate friend of Lady Morgan. She was an uncommonly fine woman, both in appearance and conversational powers, and told me many anecdotes of the authoress, defending her from all the charges usually made against her, except that of vanity, which she allowed. I received, on the whole, the impression that Lady Morgan's goodness of heart was more than an offset to her certainly very innocent weaknesses. My companion was much amused at an American's asking after the "fender in Kildare street;" though she half withdrew her cordiality when I told her I knew the countryman of mine who wrote the account of Lady Morgan, of which she complains so bitterly in the "Book of the Boudoir." It was this lady with whom the fair authoress "dined in the Chaussée d'Antin," so much to her satisfaction.
While we were conversing, the lady's husband came up, and finding that I was an American, made some inquiries about the progress of phrenology on the other side of the water. Like most enthusiasts in the science, his own head was a remarkably beautiful one; and I soon found that he was the bosom friend of Dr. Spurzheim, to whom he offered to introduce me. We made an engagement for the next day, and the party separated.
My new acquaintance called on me the next morning, according to appointment, and we went together to Dr. Spurzheim's residence. The passage at the entrance was lined with cases, in which stood plaster casts of the heads of distinguished men, orators, poets, musicians—each class on its particular shelf—making altogether a most ghastly company. The doctor received my companion with great cordiality, addressing him in French, and changing to very good German-English when he made any observation to me. He is a tall, large-boned man, and resembles Harding, the American artist, very strikingly. His head is finely marked; his features are bold, with rather a German look; and his voice is particularly winning, and changes its modulations, in argument, from the deep, earnest tone of a man, to an almost child-like softness. The conversation soon turned upon America, and the doctor expressed, in ardent terms, his desire to visit the United States, and said he had thought of accomplishing it the coming summer. He spoke of Dr. Channing—said he had read all his works with avidity and delight, and considered him one of the clearest and most expansive minds of the age. If Dr. Channing had not strong developments of the organs of ideality and benevolence, he said, he should doubt his theory more than he had ever found reason to. He knew Webster and Professor Silliman by reputation, and seemed to be familiar with our country, as few men in Europe are. One naturally, on meeting a distinguished phrenologist, wishes to have his own developments pronounced upon; but I had been warned by my friend that Dr. Spurzheim refused such examinations as a general principle, not wishing to deceive people, and unwilling to run the risk of offending them. After a half hour's conversation, however, he came across the room, and putting his hands under my thick masses of hair, felt my head closely all over, and mentioned at once a quality, which, right or wrong, has given a tendency to all my pursuits in life. As he knew absolutely nothing of me, and the gentleman who introduced me knew no more, I was a little startled. The doctor then requested me to submit to the operation of having a cast taken of my head, an offer which was too kind and particular to be declined; and, appointing an hour to be at his rooms the following day, we left him.
I was there again at twelve, the morning after, and found De Potter (the Belgian patriot) and Dr. Bowring, with the phrenologist, waiting to undergo the same operation. The preparations looked very formidable, A frame, of the length of the human body, lay in the middle of the room, with a wooden bowl to receive the head, a mattress, and a long white dress to prevent stain to the clothes. As I was the youngest, I took my turn first. It was very like a preparation for being beheaded. My neck was bared, my hair cut, and the long white dress put on. The back of the head is taken first; and, as I was only immersed up to the ears in the liquid plaster, this was not very alarming. The second part, however, demanded more patience. My head was put once more into the stiffened mould of the first half, and as soon as I could get my features composed I was ordered to shut my eyes; my hair was oiled and laid smooth, and the liquid plaster poured slowly over my mouth, eyes, and forehead, till I was cased completely in a stiffening mask. The material was then poured on thickly, till the mask was two or three inches thick, and the voices of those standing over me were scarcely audible. I breathed pretty freely through the orifices at my nose; but the dangerous experiment of Mademoiselle Sontag, who was nearly smothered in the same operation, came across my mind rather vividly; and it seemed to me that the doctor handled the plaster quite too ungingerly, when he came to mould about my nostrils. After a half hour's imprisonment, the plaster became sufficiently hardened, and the thread which was laid upon my face was drawn through, dividing the mask into two parts. It was then gradually removed, pulling very tenaciously upon my eyelashes and eyebrows, and leaving all the cavities of my face filled with particles of lime. The process is a tribute to vanity, which one would not be willing to pay very often.
I looked on at Dr. Bowring's incarceration with no great feeling of relief. It is rather worse to see than to experience, I think. The poet is a nervous man; and as long as the muscles of his face were visible, his lips, eyelids, and mouth, were quivering so violently that I scarcely believed it would be possible to get an impression of them. He has a beautiful face for a scholar—clear, well-cut, finished features, expressive of great purity of thought; and a forehead of noble amplitude, white and polished as marble. His hair is black and curling (indicating in most cases, as Dr. Spurzheim remarked, activity of mind), and forms a classical relief to his handsome temples. Altogether, his head would look well in a picture, though his ordinary and ungraceful dress, and quick, bustling manner, rather destroy the effect of it in society.
De Potter is one of the noblest-looking men I ever saw. He is quite bald, with a broad, ample, majestic head, the very model of dignity and intellect. Dr. Spurzheim considers his head one of the most extraordinary he has met. Firmness is the great development of its organs. His tone and manner are calm and very impressive, and he looks made for great occasions—a man stamped with the superiority which others acknowledge when circumstances demand it. He employs himself in literary pursuits at Paris, and has just published a pamphlet on "the manner of conducting a revolution, so that no after-revolution shall be necessary." I have translated the title awkwardly, but that is the subject.
I have since heard Dr. Spurzheim lecture twice, and have been with him to a meeting of the "Anthropological Society" (of which he is the president and De Potter the secretary), where I witnessed the dissection of the human brain. It was a most interesting and satisfactory experiment, as an illustration of phrenology. David the sculptor is a member of the society, and was present. He looks more like a soldier than an artist, however—wearing the cross of the Legion of Honor, with a military frock coat, and an erect, stern, military carriage. Spurzheim lectures in a free, easy, unconstrained style, with occasionally a little humor, and draws his arguments from admitted facts only. Nothing could be more reasonable than his premises, and nothing more like an axiom than the results, as far as I have heard him. At any rate, true or false, his theory is one of extreme interest, and no time can be wasted in examining it; for it is the study of man, and therefore the most important of studies.
I have had several long conversations with Dr. Spurzheim about America, and have at last obtained his positive assurance that he would visit it. He gave me permission this morning to say (what I am sure all lovers of knowledge will be pleased to hear) that he should sail for New York in the course of the ensuing summer, and pass a year or more in lecturing and travelling in the United States. He is a man to obtain the immediate confidence and respect of a people like ours, of the highest moral worth, and the most candid and open mind.