III.—Nation, Sex, and Family
National Physiognomy. It is undeniable that there is a national physiognomy as well as national character. Compare a negro and an Englishman, a native of Lapland and an Italian, a Frenchman and an inhabitant of Tierra del Fuego. Examine their forms, countenances, characters, and minds. This difference will be easily seen, though it will sometimes be very difficult to describe it scientifically.
The following infinitely little is what I have hitherto observed in the foreigners with whom I have conversed.
I am least able to characterise the French, They have no traits so bold as the English, nor so minute as the Germans. I know them chiefly by their teeth and their laugh. The Italians I discover by the nose, small eyes, and projecting chin. The English by their foreheads and eyebrows. The Dutch by the rotundity of their heads and the weakness of the hair. The Germans by the angles and wrinkles round the eyes and in the cheeks. The Russians by the snub nose and their light-coloured or black hair.
I shall now say a word concerning Englishmen in particular. Englishmen have the shortest and best-arched foreheads—that is to say, they are arched only upwards, and, towards the eyebrows, either gently recline or are rectilinear. They seldom have pointed, usually round, full noses. Their lips are usually large, well defined, beautifully curved. Their chins are round and full. The outline of their faces is in general large, and they never have those numerous angles and wrinkles by which the Germans are so especially distinguished. Their complexion is fairer than that of the Germans.
All Englishwomen whom I have known personally, or by portrait, appear to be composed of marrow and nerve. They are inclined to be tall, slender, soft, and as distant from all that is harsh, rigorous, or stubborn as heaven is from earth.
The Swiss have generally no common physiognomy or national character, the aspect of fidelity excepted. They are as different from each other as nations the most remote.
The Physiognomical Relation of the Sexes. Generally speaking, how much more pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affectionate, flexible, and patient is woman than man. The primary matter of which woman is constituted appears to account for this difference. All her organs are tender, yielding, easily wounded, sensible, and receptive; they are made for maternity and affection. Among a thousand women, there is hardly one without these feminine characteristics.
This tenderness and sensibility, the light texture of their fibres and organs, render them easy to tempt and to subdue, and yet their charms are more potent than the strength of man. Truly sensible of purity, beauty and symmetry, woman does not always take time to reflect on spiritual life, spiritual death, spiritual corruption.
The woman does not think profoundly; profound thought is the prerogative of the man; but women feel more. They rule with tender looks, tears, and sighs, but not with passion and threats, unless they are monstrosities. They are capable of the sweetest sensibility, the deepest emotion, the utmost humility, and ardent enthusiasm. In their faces are signs of sanctity which every man honours.