Some Examples.
The variations in the long hairs of men’s eyebrows present some very singular tufts, and I have added below nine figures of certain cases examined and noted by myself, and these are, I hope, plain enough without any more detailed account than is given in the few words describing each.
Unless one’s attention be specially directed to these aberrant hairs, which are extremely common, one would not expect that hairs could be so variously twisted by muscular action beneath them. You may see a tuft of long hair projecting from the plane of the eyebrows towards the inner end, looking like a small horn, and I have measured individual hairs in elderly persons and found many an inch in length and a few an inch and a half. Such a tuft gives a fierce look to the countenance if the hairs are bushy and plentiful. The celebrated Dr. Keate, the flogging Head of Eton, a fiery strenuous person, was noted for the extraordinary long horn of thick hair in his eyebrows, which he appeared to use as a supplementary finger to point to this or that object of his terrifying attention. You may also see a man with a great drooping curtain of hairs overhanging his eyes, half hiding the upper lids and eyes. Another will show at the outer end of the eyebrows a bristling bush of hairs turning upwards in the aggressive manner of Wilhelm II. of evil memory, or of Mr. Roosevelt in former times. Again the outer points of the eyebrow hairs may turn downwards like a cavalry moustache, or the hairs may stand out at right angles as a level shelf. The fashions of these “orbital moustaches” appear to be as numerous as those of the upper lip.