Facial feature

“ We often see fine eyes in an otherwise ugly face, but rarely is a thoroughly beautiful nose found in a face which could be called ugly, for the nose is the keynote of the face, and in it lies the chief characteristic of the countenance. Beautiful eyes and beautiful lips have, it is true, more charm—it is the expression of the eyes and lips of those we love which we most remember in absence—but it is the nose which, more than any other feature, most affects the general character of the face. ”

“ A pair of non-commital eyes of slightly different size and color stood guard over a nose that was really too small to look after itself, and farther south-to be exact, southwest-on her facial map lay a mouth that only opened when it had to, and usually shut in somebody's face. ”

“ Now it is within the knowledge of every one who has turned a curious inward eye upon his feelings that certain emotions which deeply stir the inner man, and which may make us glow or shudder to the finger tips, do not cause any facial changes, except, perhaps, a slight difference in the hue of the brow or cheeks, and a glistening or darkening of the eye. ”

“ The shape of the face is comely, the cheek-bones are not high, neither are the eyes hollow, nor the brow prominent: the only feature that does not correspond with our ideas of beauty is the nose, which, in general, is somewhat flat ”

“ Broad brow, gray eyes, resolute little chin, the mouth the best feature of the face, her expression thoughtful, serene, and self-possessed, the gray eyes a trifle inclined to dream wide-awake, hair of no particular colour, but golden in the sunlight. ”

“ The face was a face for which some men would die a hundred deaths and dream all beauty in dying, while other men, blind fools, and many women, of the envious sort, would protest it to be not even passable; a face small, thin, clear, and very dark; the chin obstinate; the mouth full, somewhat large, sorrowful, mocking, maddening, unforgettably scarlet; the nose whimsical, dainty; the eyes of a strange green radiance, very large and trustfully wide open, frank as a child's, yet unfathomable; a face to trust, to adore, yet not to understand. ”

“ Equally true is it that the face should be free from that incessant smiling which overspreads the countenances of so many. The face should possess neither one of these expressions, but present a set, firm appearance, conveying no idea of the thoughts of the mind. Outward causes are exceptions to the changes of facial expressions. ”

“ Our faces are distorted and assume quite a different expression, for we involuntarily draw the facial muscles together in the wind, to protect the eyes, producing a quantity of fresh wrinkles which are filled with white dust. ”

“ The head shows us an extreme degree of morbidezza in the softening of all the sharper facial lines such as eyelids and lips. The face is seen almost through a slight haze, and it thus gets some of the impression conveyed by distance. ”

“ Logically, however, physiognomy follows phrenology, as a transition from the formulation of structure to the formulation of behavior. There is a very widespread belief that many mental and moral characteristics betray themselves in special facial items. The shifting eye, lofty brow, massive jaw, thin lips, large ear, protruding or receding chin, dimple, wrinkle, tilted nose, thin skin, prominent veins, and many other characteristics have come, in fiction and in table-talk, to symbolize specific characteristics. ”

“ The features, though indicative of a delicate organization, are of the most pleasing cast. The facial angle contains full ninety degrees; the forehead is finely formed, and the brain large; the nose is long, and the nostrils thin, while the eyes, though not large, are well set. ”

“ Eyes large, lustrous, beautiful, soulful; above them, no longer separated by rugged brow ridges, is the top of the head, a glistening, hairless dome, terete and beautiful; no craggy nose rises to disturb by its unmeaning shadows the symmetry of that calm face, no vestigial ears project; the mouth is a small, perfectly round aperture, toothless and gumless, jawless, unanimal, no futile emotions disturbing its roundness as it lies, like the harvest moon or the evening star, in the wide firmament of face. ”

“ The face is of that perfect oval admired by artists as the highest standard of beauty. Taste and refinement are the most striking qualities one reads in it; the mouth is the most individual feature, small and modelled in delicate curves. ”

“ The face, with its candid brow, its rather short straight nose and the soft curves of its chin, has the ineffable charm of purity, of equable pulses, of slow-breathing health both of mind and body; the whole expression is one of sweet, grave steadfastness. ”

“ But we cannot imagine a mere biological trend towards producing interesting faces; because an interesting face is one particular arrangement of eyes, nose, and mouth, in a most complex relation to each other. ”

“ Another curious fact, not hitherto observed, is, [Pg 250] that though beauty of face is, owing to the power of the vital system, almost universal at a certain age, there is always a faulty feature, which the physiognomist may observe, and which ever continues to exaggerate, until it terminate in relative ugliness. Thus we scarcely observe the long upper lip during youth, in some women; and yet it afterward gives to them the sober grimace of baboons. We admire in youth the spirit of the piercing eye, and aquiline nose in others, to whom these afterward give the look of so many old hawks. ”

“ The removal of the mask, by a hand of perfect whiteness and delicacy, revealed the face of a young man of twenty-four or five years of age, a face that, by its regularity of feature and gentle expression, had something of the character of a woman’s. ”

“ Among the facial muscles, intellectuality appears to be most commonly expressed in the frontal and middle zones, and by the action of the corrugator and orbicularis-oculi muscles. It has been possible among out-patients to accept the facial appearance as a physical sign of mental as well as of physical and organic suffering. ”

“ Observe how powerfully the expression of the face is affected by the asymmetry between the upper and lower rows of teeth. The position of the eyes at equal distances on each side of the median line of the face—the nose—might seem to be indispensable for beauty, and yet how very rarely are the eyes placed with perfect symmetry! The wonder is, that these asymmetries of the face should be, after all, so slight as they are, considering how serious are the impediments placed in its way by the requirements of bodily growth. ”

“ Not until the sense organs of man begin to develop are changes noticeable in facial expression. If, through heredity or constitutional defect, that part of the brain which presides over development of the facial bones lose its control, arrest of development of that particular tissue results at any period between birth and the twenty-fifth year, while other parts of the head and face continue to develop. ”

“ The incessant flow of involuntary nerve-currents to the facial muscles doubtless accounts for the odd similarity of expression among men of the same vocation. In many such cases the conditions are so complex that it seems impossible to lay one's finger upon the special items of environment which conduce to the facial characteristics exhibited by nearly all members of certain trades and professions. ”

“ Often my fingers must go to feel my smooth cheeks and chin, and she, catching me, must needs laugh and vow a smooth face suited me well, and that I should be handsome were my nose another shape and my eyes a different colour. ”

“ And, as I fixed my attention upon them more and more closely, heaven aid me! the features of a human face grew more and more distinctly traceable and visible, just as when, on looking at a distorted picture through a lens specially constructed, all its lines and effects then, and not till then, grow clear and sharp. ”

“ The face is no longer half-concealed by the mass of hair, but is a blaze of light and beauty, except that here and there a few tiny curls have escaped from their fetters, and moist with perspiration, adhere to the face. ”

“ In spite of the broken condition of the face, with the nose gone, it has not lost its character. There are the heavy eyebrows, the prominent cheek-bones, the full lips, the poetic chin, the blurred but on-looking eyes. I think the first feeling of the visitor is that the face is marred beyond recognition, but the sweep of the majestic lines soon becomes apparent; it is not difficult to believe that there is a smile on the sweet mouth, and the stony stare of the eyes, once caught, will never be forgotten. ”

“ Imagine that woman attacked by a malady which leaves her features exactly as they were, but which changes the color of her face—from the throat upward to just beneath the nose—from the warm white to a mottled, greyish hue. ”

“ Too long has the face been degraded from its rank as a thing of beauty to a mere vulgar index of character or emotion. We had come to troubling ourselves, not with its charm of colour and line, but with such questions as whether the lips were sensuous, the eyes full of sadness, the nose indicative of determination. I have no quarrel with physiognomy. For my own part, I believe in it. But it has tended to degrade the face æsthetically, in such wise as the study of cheirosophy has tended to degrade the hand. And the use of cosmetics, the masking of the face, will change this. ”

“ In life this must have been a glorious face. The eyes are large and prominent, the brow is broad and fine, the mouth wide and obviously sensitive, the chin delicate, and the nose long, well set, and indicative of immense force of character. ”

“ If, then, recession of the forehead, protuberance of the jaws, and largeness of the cheek-bones, three leading elements of ugliness, are demonstrably indicative of mental inferiority—if such other facial defects as great width between the eyes, flatness of the nose, spreading of its alæ, frontward opening of the nostrils, length of the mouth, and largeness of the lips, are habitually associated with these, and disappear along with them as intelligence increases, both in the race and in the individual ”

“ As regards the face, one notices that the nose and mouth are rather crooked, and that the eyes diverge: not, indeed, that these defects are really displeasing, since they are what one sometimes finds in living youth. ”

“ Possibly it will be urged, in reply, that changes of expression affect only the muscles and skin of the face; that the permanent marks they produce can extend but to these; that, nevertheless, the beauty of a face is mainly dependent upon the form of its bony framework ”

“ The keen eyes looked straight out at the observer, with an earnestness of gaze betokening earnestness of purpose. The features and contour of the face were both delicate and strong; and the mouth, sensitive as well as resolute, was shadowed, not hidden, by the dark moustache. ”

“ To the student of the internal secretions the lines, expressions, attitudes are important for they tell of the state of tensions and strains in the vegetative apparatus with which they are inseparably connected. It is when one comes to the consideration of the face as a complex of brows, eyes, nose, lips and jaws that he becomes most interested. ”

“ While one eye was gazing intently in your face, the other was fixed in another direction—immovable, the more hideous because at first you mistook it for a natural eye. A smile may over spread the face, animate the lip, and lighten up the natural eye ”

“ We like or dislike too readily, we are blinded by the race, sex and age of the one studied, and, most fatal of all, we judge by standards of beauty that are totally misleading. The sweetest face may hide the most arrant egoist, for facial beauty has very little to do with the nature behind the face. In fact, facial make-up is more influenced by diet, disease and racial tendency than by character. ”

“ Fixing my gaze, the relief from second to second is magnified, the eyebrows start forth prominently from above the eyes, the nose seems to grow a foot in length, my mustache shoots forth like a fountain from my lip, the teeth seem to retreat immeasurably. ”

“ This singular formation is a faithful representation of a three-quarter view of an old man’s face, with forehead, eyes, nose, mouth and beard in such perfect proportion that one can hardly believe, without close examination, the face is only an accidental result of the elements, in their unceasing work of denudation. ”

“ The firm curves of the contours, the extreme delicacy of the features, the straight nose, full lips and brilliant complexion, the quantities of very dark hair crisply waving, above all, the large, lustrous, and appealing eyes composed a beauty truly more often seen in pictures than in real life. ”

“ Now as to thy face: under that smooth forehead is thy nose, which is of measure, neither small nor great, straight, and lovely carven at the nostrils: thine eyen are as grey as a hawk’s, but kind and serious, and nothing fierce nor shifting. Nay, now thou lettest thine eyelids fall, it is as fair with thy face as if they were open, so smooth and simple are they and with their long full lashes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Under this severe coiffure we discern a serious gentle placid face—long narrow eyes, a high forehead, a full mouth with pretty pursed lips; a face too closely following the mediæval ideal for it to impress us very strongly as a likeness. ”