Chin

“ The chin is formed by the under lip, and the termination of the jaw-bones, and it denotes sensuality in man, according as it is more or less flexible, smooth, or clear: it discovers what his rank is among his fellows. The chin forms the oval of the countenance; and when, as in the antique statues of the Greeks, it is neither pointed nor indented, but smooth, and gradually diminishes, it is then the keystone of the superstructure. With apologies to Herder for much of the foregoing, thus endeth this brief dissertation on Physiognomy. ”

“ Last in our review of the objects above named, the chin, in its ideal form, completes the spiritual expression of the mouth, that is, assuming it is not wholly absent, as in the case of animals, or only retained in a retreating and meagre condition as in works of Egyptian sculpture, but as rather lengthened out even beyond the degree which is usual, receiving thus in the rounded fulness of its arched curve, more particularly where we have shorter underlips, yet further increase of size. To sum up in fact a full chin conveys the impression of a certain satiety and repose. ”

“ Chin′a-rose, a name applied to several varieties of garden roses; Chin′a-shop, a shop in which china, crockery, &c. are sold; Chin′a-ware, porcelain-ware; Chinee′, a Chinaman.—adj. Chinese′, of or belonging to China.—China aster (see Aster) .
Chinch, chinch, n. the bed-bug in America. [Sp.,—L. cimic-em.]
Chinchilla, chin-chil′la, n. a small rodent quadruped of South America, valued for its soft gray fur: the fur itself. [Sp.]
Chincough, chin′kof, n. a disease, esp. of children, attended with violent fits of coughing: whooping-cough. ”

“ A peaked chin, reasonably full of flesh, shows a good understanding, a high spirit, and laudable of conversation. A double chin shows a man of peaceable disposition, but of dull apprehension, vain, eredulous, and secret in his actions. ”

“ If we shave the chin and the cheeks, why not the head, the hands and the arms? How comes it that hair is less tolerable on the side of the face than on the back of the hand? The Chinaman shaves his head all over, except a small spot on the crown, about twice the size of a dollar, and we laugh at him for doing so ”

“ Prognathism is usually associated with a receding chin. By elaborating the Fraipont method, Professor Klaatsch has added another vertical plane at the most anterior point of the cutting surface of the teeth. In primitive folks, like the Australians and the fossil Neanderthals, the chin lies behind this plane and is called a “negative chin”; in the Mongoloids (Malays, etc.) the chin practically lies against the plane and is called a “neutral chin”; and lastly, in the modern Europeans, the chin lies before the plane and is known as a “positive chin.” ”

“ The older meaning, ‘cheek’ (Gothic kinnus, feminine, ‘cheek’) , has been preserved in Kinnbein, ‘cheek-bone,’ in Old High German chinnizan, Middle High German kinnezan, ‘molar tooth,’ Old High German kinnibaccho, ‘jawbone’; compare Anglo-Saxon čin, English chin, Anglo-Saxon činbân, English chin-bone, Modern Dutch kin, feminine, ‘chin’; Old Icelandic kinn, ‘cheek.’ Compare Greek γένυς, feminine, ‘chin, jaw, jawbone,’ also ‘edge of an axe, axe,’ γένειον, neuter, ‘chin, jaw,’ γενείας, feminine, ‘chin, beard’; Latin gena, ‘cheek,’ dentes genuini, ‘molar teeth’ ”

“ I have never seen sharp indentings in the middle of the chin save in men of cool understanding, unless when something evidently contradictory appeared in the countenance. The soft, fat, double chin generally points out the epicure; and the angular chin is seldom found save in discreet, well-disposed, firm men. Flatness of chin speaks the cold and dry ”

“ American: Quichua, dialect of Lima.
Chinese.
(1.) The most important and purest of all monosyllabic languages, vernacular in the empire of China. It has several sub-dialects, and resembles some idioms of Central Asia. The mode of writing is considered to have originated from drawings of actual objects, somewhat analogous to the hieroglyphics of Egypt, or the picture writing of Mexico. The word “chin,” in Chinese, means “man,” “men,” i.e. the inhabitants of that part of Asia. ”

“ Along the streets, well-to-do Chinese appear swelled to double their usual proportions by furs and successive layers of wadded clothes, which are of such thickness as to hold the arms propped out at almost right angles to the bodies, while their heads are enveloped in bright-coloured hoods buttoning tight under the chin. ”

“ Physiognomists have expended much ingenuity in attempting to trace a connection between various forms of the chin and traits of character; but their generalisations have no scientific value. It is probable that often a very small, weak chin indicates weak desires and a vacillating character, while an energetic chin, like Richard Wagner’s, indicates the iron will of a reformer. ”

“ Their handsome oval faces, of a reddish brown among those most176 exposed to the weather, are furnished with large, level eyes, prominent but not exaggerated cheekbones, an arched but rather broad nose, an ordinary mouth, somewhat thin-lipped, and a pointed and characteristic chin from which the beard has been plucked. ”

“ Some travellers tell us, that the Chinese are large and fat, their limbs well formed, their faces broad and round, their eyes small, eye-brows [207] large, their eye-lids turned upwards, and their noses short and flat; that upon the chin they have very little beard, and upon each lip not more than seven or eight tufts of hair. Those who inhabit the southern provinces are more brown and tawny than those in the northern; that in colour they resemble the natives of Mauritania, or the more swarthy Spaniards; but those in the middle provinces are as fair as the Germans. ”

“ JOHN CHINAMAN.
THE expression of the Chinese face in the aggregate is neither cheerful nor happy. In an acquaintance of half a dozen years, I can only recall one or two exceptions to this rule. There is an abiding consciousness of degradation, —a secret pain or self-humiliation visible in the lines of the mouth and eye. ”

“ As regularly they raised the backs of their hands to wipe them away. Only the Chinaman, broad-faced, calm, impassive as Buddha, save for a little crafty smile in one corner of his eye, seemed utterly unaffected by the heat, cool as autumn. ”

“ Chin succeeded in taking his master’s degree; and three years afterwards, happening to revisit the Flowery Hill, he beheld a Mr. Chi, one of those very gentlemen who had previously been killed by the tiger. In great alarm he was making off, when Chi seized his bridle and would not let him proceed. So he got down from his horse, and inquired what was the matter; to which Chi replied, “I am now the slave of Miao, and have to endure bitter toil for him. He must kill some one else before I can be set free. ”

“ With [Pg 48] these few exceptions, every Chinaman has a queue, from the young child whose short hairs are pinched up, sometimes on the crown of the head, and sometimes on the sides of it, and braided with threads of red silk into a tight little tail a few inches long, so stiff that it stands straight out from the head, up to the almost bald old man, whose straggling gray hairs are tied into a thin wisp at the back of his neck.
The Chinese have usually a good quantity of hair, coarse, perfectly straight, and jetty black, except, in a few cases, where, from illness, the color is rusty black. ”

“ The tong agent’s face wreathed in a cynical, disbelieving smile. “Explanations are unnecessary!” he snapped, and then as if suddenly invoking the spirits of his ancestors, the man broke into guttural Chinese. ”

“ More familiar is the Chinese, whom the observer marks down by his less than European stature, his jaundice-yellow skin, and coarse, straight black hair; the special character of his features is neatly touched off on his native china-plates and paper-screens which show the snub nose, high cheek-bones, and that curious slanting set of the eyes which we can imitate by putting a finger near the outer corners of our own eyes and pushing upward. By comparing such a set of races with our own countrymen, we are able to make out the utmost differences of complexion and feature among mankind. ”

“ They were not the sleek-braided, white-bloused, silk-sashed Chinese of the [Pg 63] house-servant variety. They had wild black hair, rugged, not fat, sleepy faces, and little clothing except the boots,—store boots, in which a Chinaman is queerer than in anything except a store hat. They struggled with the jam of cord-wood as if it were some sort of water-prey they had hunted down, and were now meeting at bay, spearing, thrusting, hooking with their long boat-hooks, skipping from rock to rock in midstream, hoarse with shouting. ”

“ They have hardly any beard, but some of them—though not often before they are grandfathers, and more than forty years old—wear a much-admired moustache. Accustomed to black locks and smooth faces, they look curiously on the full beards of the men, and the yellow curls of the children, of our fairer race, or, as they style us, “The Red-Headed Foreigners.”
The Chinese shave the whole head, except a round patch on the crown, about as large as a breakfast saucer. On this they let the hair grow, and it is combed back and down, and tied firmly with a string, at the middle of the bottom of the patch. ”

“ When Kow Li had cleared away the small tea-service, Sên sat, until it was time to change for dinner, almost without moving in his easy-chair—and thought. It’s a Chinese habit—the breath of the Chinese mind. A Chinese must meditate—or die. ”

“ The Chinese ladies are plain. They wear their black hair plastered from a flat parting on either side of the face, and with bunches of artificial flowers and tinsel stuck in, behind the ear, from which depend long green jade earrings. Others have their hair drawn up over a comb, to form a top knot, rising about four inches above the head. There is yet a still more curious fashion of dressing the hair into a plait wired, so as to stand out from the nape of the neck in a stiff curve, just like the tail of a cat. ”

“ The almond form and oblique setting of the eye, so peculiar to the natives of the south, is well brought out in this picture. The face is altogether a pleasing one, but, as is common among children in China, it will gradually lose its attractions as it grows to maturity. The softness of the eye is then frequently replaced by a cold, , calculating expression, the result of their peculiar training, and the countenance assumes an air of apathetic indifference which is so necessary to veil the inner feelings of a polished Chinese gentleman. ”

“ The whole countenance is in fact very nearly round, and this is more particularly striking in women, who are reckoned beautiful in proportion as they approach this form of face. The eyes are small, dark, and round. They want the tumid, incumbent eyelid of the Chinese, and hence they derive a sprightliness of aspect unknown to the latter. The nose is small, but well formed. The mouth is remarkably large, the lips are prominent but not thick. The beard is remarkably scanty, yet they cultivate it with the greatest care. ”

“ The Chinese have very slight beards, and it is perhaps for this reason that they frequently represent their divinities as having a great deal of hair on their faces, so as to indicate their superiority to mortals. Then they have a god of literature, who is represented standing on the head of a large fish, and waving a pencil in his right hand, while he holds in his left a cap such as is worn by the literary graduates after they have received their degrees. ”

“ The Chinese still appear to differ entirely from the rest of mankind, in the make of their eyes and noses. But what is still to be remarked is, that into whatsoever regions these various races are transplanted, their complexions never change, unless they mingle with the natives of the country. The mucous membrane of the negroes, which is known to be of a black colour, is a manifest proof, that there is a differential principle in each species of men, as well as plants. ”

“ Thus do we find the laws of Health and Beauty coinciding in the smallest details.
The position of the eye also largely influences our æsthetic judgment. What strikes us first in looking at a Chinaman is his obliquely-set eyes, with the outer corner drawn upwards, which displeases us even more than their excessive elongation and small size. Oblique eyes are a dissonance in the harmony of our features, and almost as objectionable as a crooked mouth. True, our own eyes are rarely absolutely horizontal, but the deviation is 474too minute to be noticed by any but a trained observer. ”

“ I gravely examined two of his pulses—every properly organised Chinaman has four hundred—and finding his heart where it should be in the centre of his body, with the other organs ranged round it like the satellites round the sun—every Chinaman is thus constructed—I was glad to be able to assure him that he will certainly live forty years longer—if Heaven permit him. ”

“ Imagine a short, slouchy figure, with sloping eyes, a yellow complexion, features characterized by a sort of low cunning, a shaved head with a pigtail, clad in a loose cloth blouse, half shirt and half jacket, continuations not exactly pants nor yet a petticoat, and shoes thick-soled and shearing upwards like a Madras surf-boat, and you have John Chinaman as he appears at home. The portrait is universal. One Chinaman is as like another as two peas,—a uniformity often leading to ludicrous mistakes. ”