Читать книгу The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother - George H. Napheys - Страница 43

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Philosophers say that every idle word which is spoken continues to vibrate in the air through all infinity. So it is with the passions and the thoughts. Each impresses on the body some indelible mark, and a long continuance of similar thoughts leaves a visible imprint.

Under the names of phrenology, physiognomy, palmistry, and others, attempts have been made at divers times to lay down fixed principles by which we could judge of men by their outsides; but only vague results have been obtained. A learned German author, of high repute in exact science, has gone a different way to work. He has studied the body as a whole, and sought with the eye of an anatomist how different avocations, passions, temperaments, habits, mould and fashion the external parts of man. His results are embraced in a curious volume which he entitles The Symbolism of the Human Body. We shall borrow some hints from it, germane to our present theme.

As to size, large-bodied and large-boned men possess greater energy, a more masculine character, but often less persistence, and are usually devoid of the more delicate emotions. Fat people are good-tempered, but indolent; thin people, full of life, but irascible.

The neck is a significant part of the body. View it from in front, and it discloses the physical constitution. There are the conduits of the food and the air; there, the great blood-vessels pass to the head, and its base is modified by their form as they pass from the heart. When broad and full, it denotes a vigorous physical life—a plethoric constitution. A distinguished teacher of midwifery, Professor Pajot of Paris, says that when he sees one of those necks full in front, like that of Marie Antoinette, as shown in her portraits, he prepares himself to combat childbed convulsions. That queen, it is well-known, nearly perished with them.

The back of the neck contains the vertebral column, and is close to the brain. It reveals the mental constitution. The short round neck of the prize-fighter betrays his craft. The slender, arched, and graceful neck of the well-proportioned woman is the symbol of health and a well-controlled mind. Burke, in his Essay on the Beautiful, calls it the most beauteous object in nature. It is a common observation, that a sensual character is shown by the thick and coarse development of this portion of the body.

The hair, also, has a significance. Fine whitish hair, like that of a child, goes with a simple, child-like disposition; black hair denotes a certain hardness of character; red hair has long been supposed to be associated with a sensual constitution, but it rather indicates a physical weakness—a tendency to scrofula. This is, however, a tendency merely. Thin hair is often the result of protracted mental labor, though many other causes produce it.

Every great man, says Herder, has a glance which no one can imitate. We may go farther, and say that every man of decided character reveals it in his eyes. They are the most difficult organs for the hypocrite to control. Beware of the man who cannot look you in the eyes, and of him in whose eyes there lurks an expression which allures yet makes you shudder. The one has something he dares not tell you, the other something you dare not listen to.

Symmetry, strength, grace, health—these are admirable qualities in a man. From the remotest ages they have been the marks of heroes. Secondary though they are to moral and mental qualities, they should be ever highly valued. A manly man! Nature designs such to be the sires of future generations. No danger that we shall fall to worshiping physical beauty again. The only fear is that in this lank, puny, scrawny generation of ours, we shall, out of vanity, underrate such beauty. Let it be ever remembered that this is the ideal, from which any departure is deterioration.