Face veil

“ The picture was as perfect as when I had had the first glimpse of it, only her face had grown, if possible, more charming after my renewed scrutiny of it.
There are faces that grow upon you the longer and the oftener you look upon them; faces that seem to have a veil over them, which melts away like the thin, fine mist of the morning upon the cliffs, until they flash out in their full color and beauty. ”

“ It is thrown over the horn, and hangs down over the shoulders. When men are present, they draw the veil with one hand close over the mouth, so as to cover the lower part of the face, leaving but one eye exposed. ”

“ Unveil'd, unmask'd! not so, not so!
Ah! thine are closer worn
Than those which, in light mockery,
One evening thou hast borne.
The mask and veil which thou dost wear
Are of thyself a part;
No mask can ever hide thy face
As that conceals thy heart. ”

“ Persistent mischief is done by the practice of binding a veil tightly round the face in such a way that not only is the sight obscured, but the eyes are mechanically irritated by the fabric clouding them.... ”

“ The moon pull'd off her veil of light,905
That hides her face by day from sight.
Mysterious veil, of brightness made,
That's both her lustre and her shade, [160]
And in the lanthorn of the night,
With shining horns, hung out her light: [161] 910
For darkness is the proper sphere [162]
Where all false glories use t' appear. ”

“ The surgeon gazed, for a moment, on the black veil, as if to ascertain the expression of the features beneath it: its thickness, however, rendered such a result impossible.
‘You are ill,’ he said, gently, ‘although you do not know it. The fever which has enabled you to bear, without feeling it, the fatigue you have evidently undergone, is burning within you now. Put that to your lips,’ he continued, pouring out a glass of water—‘compose yourself for a few moments, and then tell me, as calmly as you can, what the disease of the patient is, and how long he has been ill. ”

“ Another five minutes had elapsed, and the surgeon had resolved to explore the house, in search of some one to whom he might make his errand known, when the room-door opened, and his last night’s visitor, dressed in exactly the same manner, with the veil lowered as before, motioned him to advance. The singular height of her form, coupled with the circumstance of her not speaking, caused the idea to pass across his brain for an instant, that it might be a man disguised in woman’s attire. ”

“ There are a thousand physical transgressions that dim the lustre of the eye, or sink it too deep in the socket, or flatten it, or paint a circle round it. So of the face in general. There are a thousand forms of transgression that take away the carnation of the lip and cheek, and leave unnatural hues, not to say pimples and furrows, in its stead. ”

“ Not at all: only I wished to explain to you, that, never having worn a thick veil in a room, I’m simply stifling.
Cha. I can quite believe you. Nothing, nothing is so dangerous as a thick veil: you must take it off at once,—you must. ”

“ The eye retained its old uneasy, sinister, sidelong glance, or at rare moments (as when Percival entered) , its searching penetration and assured command; but the eyelids themselves, red and injected, as with grief or vigil, gave something haggard and wild, whether to glance or gaze. Despite the paralysis of the frame, the face, though pale and thin, showed no bodily decay. A vigour surpassing the strength of woman might still be seen in the play of the bold muscles, the firmness of the contracted lips. ”

“ Round the head a handkerchief is wound, which spoils the effect of all the rest: but a woman in the East is never seen with the head uncovered, even in the house; and when she goes out, the veil, as we call it, though it has no resemblance to a veil, is used to conceal the whole person. ”

“ But his black vial was gone. His frown spread into fear as he searched for it in the other compartments of his belt. I had thought that he had more than one black vial, but now it seemed not. His huge face was swept with the panic of terror. He flung a wild glance around him. ”

“ Just then the prostrate monster’s hideous head changed suddenly to a human visage almost as horrible—a brutal, ruffianly, soulless face, with a bristling red beard and a low, receding forehead, across which ran a broad smear of blood. ”

“ The black veil, on the other hand, is most unhealthy: it harms the eyes and it injures the skin. As it rubs against the nose and forehead it is almost certain to cause abrasions, and often makes an annoying sore. ”

“ The wounds which seem like real wounds, the color of the skin, the contraction of the face, the attitude, the expression,—each thing is terribly real. If you touched the body, you would expect to feel the tremor of the limbs and the warmth of the blood. ”

“ Where should be the nose, was seen only a blackened cavity—the cheek had sloughed off during life, and presented only a spongy and half decayed bone—around the eyes which were imperfectly closed, was a dark putrid line, while the throat was swollen, and what remained of the teeth of the lower jaw, were exposed to view, by the absence of the nether lip, which had perished as other portions of the face—yet reader, in that horrid visage she recognized her seducer. ”

“ When the skin shines white and tight over the joints, and the face is only a skull with some varieties of expression, and the very flame flickers and jumps in the lamp, the body will bend itself up to expel a disease that it could not, in all its first splendour of health, keep from the door. ”

“ On touching a nerve of the eyelid at the same time with the heel, the muscles of the face contracted, "rage, horror, despair, anguish, and fearful grins, combined in hideous expressions on the dead man's face." ”

“ He would be handsome, but for the emaciation and deadly pallor of his face, and a downcast look imparted by a weakness of eye-sight. At times his veins throb and swell, and his limbs tremble, as if suffering from some violent internal complaint, the same, perhaps, that will terminate one day in his sudden and frightful death. ”

“ The facial muscles are agitated by every little shock which the nervous system receives, because they are already perpetually in movement in respiration, speaking, chewing, and in the defence and use of the organs of sense situated in the head. We very often meet people who, in consequence of increased irritability of the nerve-centres, suffer from nervous contractions of the face, which make them wink rapidly, contort the mouth and frown, but we never notice similar disturbances in hands or feet, or in any other part of the body. ”

“ It may have been the gossamer veil shading a rose skin, making pink pearls of the cheeks and chin and lending its charm to the other features; or it may have been the wonderful eyes that made me oblivious of Joe's warning, for I did look—looked with all my eyes, and kept on looking.
Men have died for just such eyes. ”

“ Fainting.—If your patient faints and is pale—fainting comes from too little blood in the head—make him sit down, and push his head down between his knees. Pressure on a nerve (for instance, in top of eye socket) will often revive. If his face is flushed raise the head—there is too much blood in it, as in apoplexy or sunstroke. ”

“ There would probably be malformation of the chest. The face is that of one with feverish blood, whose flame of life burnt too fast. The face is not in itself sensual, nor at all animal, but it is insolent and cruel. ”

“ I know of no other simple or single means, by which such circulation can be established and maintained in the skin, as by the constant and spirited use of the hair mittens. Besides, it will do wonders for the beauty of your face. Giving the skin of the residue of the body a free circulation, the skin of the face is not likely to be called upon to do more than its share of removing the effete matter in the system, and, therefore, is not likely to take on pimples and other evidences of impurities in the blood. ”

“ At certain seasons and under certain conditions the habit is strangely general, until you might think that woman, like the novelist in his last chapter, is always drawing a veil. The more expert can pull out the wrinkles by supplementing the pout of the lips with an indescribable wrinkling of the nose, and without calling assistance from the hand. ”

“ The almost stagnant blood beginning to circulate again through nearly collapsed veins and arteries, inflicts tortures upon every nerve—tortures unheard of in the cruelest inquisition. Red-hot needles seem to be piercing every nerve of the body and pore of the skin. It is an agony that even the torpor of the brain does not overcome. ”

“ He is roused from his condition of indifference with difficulty, but answers questions intelligently, if only in a whisper. The face is pale, beads of sweat stand out on the brow, the features are drawn, the eyes sunken, and the cheeks hollow. ”

“ Wrinkles.—Many influences of the body on the mind group themselves in the muscles of expression around the eyes. Wrinkles, for instance, are originally a habit of mind, and then the emphasis of this, in the muscles of the face, is reflected back to deepen still further the dejection or nervous unrest that originally causes them. It is surprising to see what an influence it has on patients who go round much with wrinkled foreheads, to have them give over the practice and discipline themselves to appear with uncorrugated superciliary muscles. ”

“ When a person suddenly loses his speech, in connection with obstruction of the veins,—if this happen without warning or any other strong cause, one ought to open the internal vein of the right arm, and abstract blood more or less according to the habit and age of the patient. Such cases are mostly attended with the following symptoms: redness of the face, eyes fixed, hands distended, grinding of the teeth, palpitations, jaws fixed, coldness of the extremities, retention of airs in the veins. ”

“ The positions of the body, also, are tottering and infirm, and the step loses its elasticity and vigor. The muscles, and especially those of the face and lips, are often affected with a convulsive twitching, which [7, L] produces the involuntary winking of the eye, and quivering of the lip, so characteristic of the intemperate. ”

“ Though it may be considerable quantities under the skin, the blood soon disappears leaving the face and eye normal to all appearances. No pus has formed, nor deposit left, fever disappears, the eye is well. What better effort could nature offer than through its gas generating furnace. ”

“ He would omit nothing,—neither the bluish lines made by the veins under the skin, nor the little black points scattered over the nose, nor the bright spots in the eye where neighbouring objects are reflected; the head seems to start out from the canvas, it is so like flesh and blood. ”

“ If the blood ran down the face toward the chin, the face must have been upright at the time; and if the blood trickled from the front to the back of the head, the head must have been horizontal and face upwards. ”

“ Thus their eye, rather than the features of the face, is the moveable picture which is differently sketched at every instant by the various feelings of anger, hatred, jealousy, &c. The wrinkles of the human face contribute very much to the expression of the countenance, they compose in part the physiognomy, and mark its different shades. ”

“ It becomes so much a part of us that any one being deprived of his veil is unrecognisable to friends or relatives. If one of our number is killed, and divested of his veil, no one can identify him until it has been restored to its place. ”

“ Usually there is pallor of the face which may be followed quickly with a twitching of the facial muscles, and sometimes those of the hands and feet. In most cases the attack comes on without warning; the eyes become fixed and rolled backward; the twitching usually begins in the face and very soon the entire body is involved. ”

“ Upon this, the patient probably raises his head and his eyebrows, and draws a deeper breath as if he would yawn; he is half awake, and blowing upon the eyelids, or the repetition of the previous operation, or dusting the forehead by smart transverse wavings of the hand, or blowing upon it, causes the patient's countenance to become animated; the eyelids open, he looks about him, recognises you, and begins to speak. If any feeling of heaviness remains, any weight or pain of the forehead, another repetition of the same manipulations sets all right. ”

“ The intense attacks, sweeping over the patient unawares, were accompanied by twitchings of the eyelids, rolling of the eyeballs, dizziness, sparks before the eyes, pains in the left side of the chest, and by numbness and hypoaesthesia of the face, arms and legs. ”

“ The facial vein commences by small branches on the side of the face, and runs downwards and backwards to the base of the jaw, where it may be felt within two inches of the angle, or opposite the middle grinding tooth. It is here that the orifice must be made: the thumb of the left hand being held against the vein, so as to prevent the flow of blood towards the heart, will make it rise. ”

“ Because a pale, uncertain-yeared woman had had nose-bleed, he had been overcome by a horrible nausea, an intolerable, hitherto unknown feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why, he had seen blood, felt blood, smelt blood, worked swiftly, calmly in blood against time and death—and now a pale woman with a nose-bleed.... ”

“ The sweat drops that bespeak the heart's agony stand forth; and with true instinct on the brow, in which the immovable bone constitutes the determining feature, precisely at the point where nose, eyes, and forehead coalesce, and the life of mind and heart is concentrated and emphasized, we find that just one or two indications of skin-folds and muscles, unable to be distorted to any great extent, are suffered pre-eminently to bear and express in tension this accumulated weight of agony. ”

“ Where one’s mind’s eye is perpetually looking down in upon the poor remains of his late departed dinner, there is no possibility for the outer eye to sink into any true and honest slumber. The shut lid is a falsehood. It is not sleep. The live, wakeful eye is under it, looking up against the skinny veil. Occasionally the veil is lifted just to let the dark out; occasionally the dumb blackness falls in upon the retina like a stifling dust, and dims it, for a moment, to a doze. ”