NOSES.
A popular lecturer in one of his discourses had occasion to speak on noses, and he himself, ‘defective only in his Roman nose,’ declared, had he the choice of noses, his face should be ornamented by a ‘regular weather-cutter.’ The desire was commendable and worthy attention, for strangers are instinctively judged by their noses. The nose indeed proclaims the man, and is the outward and visible symbol of inward mental calibre and intellectual character. Men of note almost invariably possess decided and prominent ‘leading articles;’ whilst an insufficient nasal accompaniment not unfrequently denotes inanity, lack of moral vigour, and at once negatives qualities which would otherwise give respect and credit. Of course there are extremes and exceptions; but generally, it is, that the more prolonged the proboscis the more striking is the countenance, and the more original the force of character.
An extreme case is recorded of a Lancashire man, whose prodigious feature became a centre of attraction in the busiest thoroughfares of Manchester, whilst he was on a visit there. Becoming at length either tired or confused by the inquisitive attention and wonderment of a crowd of admirers, he seized his nose with both hands and gave it a sudden impatient twist, as though removing an obstruction from the footway, and said sharply: ‘There—be quick, and get past as soon as you can.’
A Yorkshire manufacturer whose good living had given him ‘a nose as red as a comet,’ was told by a wealthy friend very bluntly, ‘I couldn’t afford to keep that nose of thine.’ Another friend assured him he had no cause for fear of not living comfortably, for should all other means of subsistence fail, he could easily hire himself out as a railway danger-signal.
Amongst the South Sea islanders, the nose is made to be a medium of expression of affection and amity. Tribes swearing everlasting peace, seal the compact with a promiscuous rubbing of noses against noses; by the same frictional process, maidens declaim their woes at parting and joys on reunion with other maidens, the action being attended by—so said an eye-witness—‘the shedding of a power of tears.’ Lovers make their amatory declarations through their noses, their courtship being a protracted series of rub-rub-rubbing of nose to nose.
We recall an interruption Dr Binney had whilst he was preaching on one occasion. He saw opposite to him in the gallery a countryman making elaborate preparations for putting his handkerchief to the common usage appointed to it. The doctor became interested, and stayed expectant in his discourse just before the crisis. The countryman blew a terrible blast, awakening the echoes, and almost perceptibly shaking the building to its foundations. The doctor, having
Met with many a breeze before,
But never such a blow,
waited for the fainting echoes to die, and then said with impressive gravity: ‘Let us now resume.’
Charles Lamb’s rebuke to a man who by self-assertion pronounced himself devoid of any peculiarity, ought not to be omitted. ‘Wh-which hand do you b-b-blow your n-n-nose with?’ inquired Lamb.
‘With my right hand, to be sure.’
‘Ah!’ said Lamb pensively, ‘that’s your pe-pe-pe-peculiarity. I b-b-blow mine with my hand-kerchief.’
The nose is quite a proverbial topic; for example, ‘To turn up the nose,’ ‘Put his nose out of joint,’ ‘Paid through his nose,’ and ‘Putting his nose to the grindstone,’ ‘Led by the nose,’ with many others equally felicitous. ‘Driving hogs over Swarston Bridge’ is a Derbyshire polite way of expressing snoring; and several stories are told respecting pig-drivers. A small boy was once asked: ‘Is your elder brother musical?’
‘Yes, sir; ’e is that.’
‘Can he play?’
‘O yes, sir; ’e plays beautiful.’
‘On what instrument does he perform?’
‘Why, sir, ’e plays on his nose!’
A celebrated divine was preaching before the king and court in Stuart times, when the monarch and several noblemen ‘nodded gentle assents’ to all he said, for ‘they slumbered and slept.’ The divine, wishful to reprove, but fearful to offend, at last summoned courage to shout to one of the somnolent nobles: ‘My lord, my lord, don’t snore so loud, or you’ll waken His Majesty!’
The subject has not commended itself generally to poets, yet there are few who would be inclined to say that there is nothing poetical about the nose. Here and there, we do find pointed references in poetry to the homely feature more or less poetical in expression. We can easily fancy Cowper’s picture of ‘the shivering urchin, with dewdrop at his nose;’ whilst our poet-laureate indulges in a higher flight over a maiden’s nose ‘tip-tilted like the petal of a flower,’ which sounds very refined indeed. Henry, Lord Brougham, whose nose was somewhat of this latter order, did not feel flattered by a similar reference to it. In conducting a case in Yorkshire, he was bothered in cross-examining a witness by a constant repetition of the word ‘humbug.’ ‘Humbug,’ said Lord Brougham—‘humbug, what do you mean by humbug?’—‘Whoy,’ returned the Yorkshireman, ‘if I wer to tell ye ’at ye’d getten a nice nose, I should be humbugging ye.’
Punch frequently alludes to the subject, and in its pages is to be found a description of what some suppose to be a masonic sign, under the terms of ‘taking a sight’ and ‘taking a double sight.’ ‘In taking a sight’ the thumb of one hand is placed to the extreme tip of the nose, with the fingers extended to their straightest utmost capacity; whilst ‘taking a double sight’ involves the addition of the second hand to the first, the thumb to the little finger, and action as before. The action is more varied and considered more expressive when a slight undulatory movement is observed by the fingers. The London newsboy appreciates the practice of taking a sight, especially favouring it when he has managed to sell, under the cry of ‘Third edition,’ a day but one before yesterday’s paper to a passenger upon an omnibus.
Nursery rhymes are not complete without a nose or noses, and they are constantly being quoted, for instance:
Says Moses to Aaron:
‘Thy nose is a rare un!’
Says Aaron to Moses:
‘Let us swap noses!’
And we cannot forget:
The servant in the garden hanging out the clothes,
By came a dickey bird and popped off her nose!
‘I am satisfied on every point but one,’ said a gentleman to an applicant for service—‘I cannot get over your nose.’
‘That is not to be wondered at, sir,’ replied the applicant, ‘for the bridge is broken.’
This last incident gives us a moral wherewith to adorn our paper, that, out of all noses collective, defective, conceptive, or reflective, it is better to have an ill-shaped nose than no nose at all.