A DESCRIPTION OF MAN.
The body attains its full height at the age of puberty, or at least a few years after. Some young people cease growing at fourteen or fifteen; while others continue their growth till two or three and twenty. During this period most men are of slender make; their thighs and legs small, and the muscular parts are as yet unfilled; but by degrees the fleshy fibres augment, the muscles swell, the limbs assume their figure, and become more proportioned, and before the age of thirty the body, in men, has acquired its most perfect symmetry.
In women, the body sooner attains this symmetry; their muscles and other parts being less strong, compact, and solid than those of men; and being also less in size, they require less time in coming to maturity. Hence it is that a woman is as completely formed at twenty, as a man at thirty.
The body of a well-shaped man ought to be square, the muscles expressed with boldness, and the lines in the face distinctly marked. In woman superior elegance prevails; her form is more soft, and her features more delicate. Strength and majesty belong to the former, grace and softness are the peculiar embellishments of the latter.
In both, their external forms declare their sovereignty over every living creature. Man supports his body erect; his attitude is that of command; and his face, which is turned towards the heavens, displays a superior dignity. The image of his soul is painted in his countenance; the excellence of his nature penetrates through the material form in which it is enclosed, and gives to his features a lively animation. His majestic port, his firm and resolute step, announce the superiority of his rank. He touches the earth only with his extremity, and beholds it as if at a disdainful distance. His arms are not given to him for pillars of support; nor does he render his hands callous by their treading on the ground, and losing that delicacy of feeling for which they were originally designed. His arms and hands are formed for very different purposes; they are formed to second every intention of his will; to defend himself, and to enable him to seize and enjoy the gifts of Nature.
When the mind is at rest, all the features of the visage are in a state of profound tranquillity. Their proportion, their union, their harmony, seem to mark the sweet serenity, and to give a true information of what passes within. When the soul, however, is agitated, the human visage becomes a living picture, where the passions are expressed with as much delicacy as energy; where every motion is expressed by some corresponding feature; where every impression anticipates the will, and betrays those hidden agitations, that he would often wish to conceal.
It is particularly in the eyes that the passions are painted, and most readily discovered. The eye seems to belong to the soul more than any other organ; it seems to participate of all its emotions; the softest and most tender as well as the most violent and tumultous. These if not only receives, but transmits by sympathy into the soul of the observer all that secret fire with which its mind is agitated; and thus does passion often become general. In short the eye is the lively index of the mind, and forcibly speaks the language of intelligence.
Those who are short-sighted labour under a particular disadvantage in this respect, being in a manner deprived of the intelligent expression of the eye; and which frequently gives an air of stupidity to the finest face. It is strong and violent passions alone that we ever see marked on such countenances, and which often produce very unfavourable prepossessions. However intelligent we may afterwards find such persons, it is with difficulty we renounce our former prejudices. We are so habituated to judge by external appearances that we too often decide on men’s talents by their physiognomy; and having perhaps at first, caught up our judgments prematurely, they mechanically influence us all our lives after; nay the colour, or cut of the clothes will sometimes influence conclusions as to their abilities; and that not always without reason: therefore since strangers may decide upon understanding by so trifling an article as dress, we ought not to be totally inattentive to it, trifling as it may appear.
The vivacity, or the languid motion of the eyes, gives the strongest marks to the countenance; and their colour contributes still more to enforce the expression. The different colours of the eyes are dark-hazle, light-hazle, green, blue, grey, and whitish grey. These different colours arise from the different colours of the little muscles, that serve to contract the pupil, and they very often change colour with disorder, and with age.
Those most frequent are, the hazle and the blue, and very often both these colours are found in the same eye. Those eyes which are called black are only dark-hazle, which may be easily seen upon close inspection, and only appear black from the contrast with the white of the eye; in all those which have a blue shade that colour becomes the most predominant. Those eyes are reckoned the most beautiful where the shade is the deepest; and either in the black or the blue, the fire, which gives to the eye its finest expression, is most distinguishable. For this reason, the black eyes, as they are called, have the greatest force and vivacity; but the blue are the most delicate, and have the most powerful effect in beauty, as they reflect a greater variety of rays from the tints of which they are composed.