Stature

“ Considerably taller than the ordinary height of women, her figure, although very delicate and slender, with feet and ankles of the smallest and most fairy model, was yet so exquisitely rounded, so perfect in the rise and fall of every graceful and voluptuous outline, that it was not until you stood beside her, and compared her stature with your own, that you perceived how far she overtopped her fellow fair ones in height as in beauty. ”

“ Stature.—Among all the measurements relating to the form, the principal one is the stature. It has certain characteristics that are essentially human. What we understand by stature is the height of a living animal, when standing on its feet. Let us compare the stature of one of the higher mammals, a dog for instance, with that of man. The stature of the dog is determined essentially by the length of its legs, while the spinal column is supported in a horizontal position by the legs themselves. ”

“ During the 4,000 years or more you refer to, the conditions of life on which stature depend, did not materially change, for which reason stature did not. War and field exercises, tend to large stature. ”

“ We cannot alter the stature we are of, if we would: what a foolish and ridiculous thing would it be for a man of low stature to perplex himself, to break his sleep, and beat his brains, about it, and to be continually taking thought how he might be a cubit higher ”

“ For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature, though they may be few. ”

“ If we had eyes a hundred times more piercing to examine the things that surround us, men would seem to us to be enormously tall; we can even imagine organs by means of which men would appear to us to be of immeasurable stature. ”

“ The monumental pomp of age
Was with this goodly Personage; 145
A stature undepressed in size,
Unbent, which rather seemed to rise,
In open victory o'er the weight
Of seventy years, to loftier [71] height; ”

“ For God's sake, Ladies, be not so careful to make you seem of taller stature and other than you are; but rather look to the beauty of your legs, the which be so fair and fine, at any rate with some of you. ”

“ The stature of the great man, one of whose peculiar charms consisted in his being so unlike all other great men, will rather lose than gain by the idealization which so easily runs into the commonplace. ”

“ Accordingly, the variations in stature throughout the different periods of life are neither a growth nor an evolution, but a parabolic curve, including evolution and involution. This curve represents the true human stature; the measurements taken successively from year to year representing nothing more than transitory episodes in the individual life.
Man, as he really is, we may represent by portraits taken successively from time to time, from his birth until his death; the occasional photograph which it is the custom to have taken represents nothing ”

“ Other fields of inquiry, of a practical bearing, regard the causes that influence the stature of populations and races in general, and the growth of individuals, from infancy up; and the influence of stature upon the force, agility, endurance, and physical development of individuals. An opinion was current, in the last century, that our ancestors, at some time in the past, were the equals or superiors in size to the largest men now to be found. ”

“ Thus stature follows from the essential constitution of man, which includes a body having dimensions. But here, again, we must observe that, although to have some stature is an essential attribute of man, to have this stature rather than that is an accidental quality; it being evident that human nature can exist without this determinate stature.
By the preceding remarks we are led to conclude, 1st, that all essential attributes originate in the essential constituents of the nature of which they are the attributes ”

“ Her stature, which is equal to that of the hero himself, and far greater than that of the worshippers, shows at once that she is no living mortal or descendant, but a person of equal rank with the horseman. ”

“ The different types of stature at different ages deserve our most careful consideration, yet not from the point of view already set forth regarding the different types in the fully developed individual. ”

“ Why should those born from the sons of God and the daughters of men alone have differed from the ordinary stature of man? I have no other answer than that the text says nothing of stature in this place. ”

“ The form is finely modelled, the stature tall, the limbs straight, the forehead high, the expression intelligent; and, altogether, this group of mankind affords as fine examples of the human form as can be found anywhere on the earth. ”

“ But although we lack the index of stature, we may make use of the vital index, which is given by the proportion between the circumference of the chest and the stature, and consequently gives us an index of the morphology of the bust in its relation to the whole personality ”

“ Among women somewhat younger, as indeed among men, the American observer whose recollection takes him back twenty-five years must note a more hopeful change, a very decided average increase of stature, not merely in height but in general development. ”

“ For we would have selected ten individuals possessing that mean average stature which seems to represent a biological tendency, from which many persons deviate to a greater or less extent, as though they were erroneous, aberrant, for a great variety of causes; but these aberrant statures are still such that by their excess and their deficiency they perfectly compensate for each other; so that the mean average stature precisely reproduces this tendency, this centre actually attained by the maximum number of individuals. ”

“ While the figure and the type of stature tend to delineate the individual considered by himself, the different measurements considered separately may guide us in our study of individuals in their relation to the race and the environment.
Among the measurements of the form, we will limit ourselves to a study of the stature and the weight, which serve to give us respectively the linear index of development and the volumetric estimate of the body taken as a whole. ”

“ That men of extraordinary stature, called giants, have frequently existed, we know, but there is no good reason to believe that the general stature of man was ever different from what it now is. If men were either smaller or larger than they are, they would be ill proportioned to the condition of things around them; beside, those of extraordinary height have usually a [Pg 299] feeble pulse, and short lives. ”

“ We shall examine at greater length in Chapter IV. increase of stature in connection with all the phenomena of growth. Let me for the present say that as regards man, the age of 18 to 25 years, according to race, may be considered as the practical limit of this growth. In order to make a useful comparison of statures of different populations, we should only take, then, adults above these ages.
It must be said on this point that the greater part of the reliable information which we possess concerning stature relates solely to men, and among these, more especially to conscripts or soldiers. ”

“ In stature the men are almost always above what we call the middle height, well proportioned, and never fat or pursy, like our beef-eating and beer-drinking people. Their features are regular and pleasing. ”

“ When, for instance, the father of an individual is unusually tall, his mother somewhat taller than the average, it is assumed that the tendency of the children would be to develop a stature which is somewhat near the general type, but at the same time dependent upon the intermediate value located between the stature of the mother and that of the father. ”

“ The latter mode of life has prevailed for 100,000 years, and besides the general causes there has been the additional special one in this case, of the loss of function in a considerable portion of the trunk which would of consequence lose size in an increased proportion.
“But after all it is not physical stature that commands respect, but mental stature. Many of your greatest men have been of small stature. You speedily forget one’s size when attending to the actions of his mind. The most dignified presence is that which impresses itself as the strongest mentally. ”

“ When there is occasion for applying the terms tall or low stature to individuals of our own race, it is necessary at the same time to establish limits that will determine the precise meaning of such terms. ”

“ The proportions of the perfect human figure are strictly mathematical. The whole figure is six times the length of the foot. Whether the form be slender or plump, this rule holds good. Any deviation from it is a departure from the highest beauty of proportion. The Greeks made all their statues according to this rule. The face, from the highest point of the forehead, where the hair begins, to the end of the chin, is one-tenth of the whole stature. ”

“ A giant in stature, being six feet and four inches in height, his grand physique was but a type of the great heart and strong intellect of a great man. He was called to preside over this nation at the most critical time in its history. ”

“ The dust of words grows thicker and thicker as we go on, for I am next told that the same line of proof would show “that the stature of a man or boy was identical, because the boy passes through every gradation 439 on attaining the one stature from the other. ”

“ Still must not the brown overset the white too much! Again, a beautiful countenance must be borne by a body fashioned and built to correspond. This doth hold good of little as well as big, but tall stature will ever take first place. ”

“ and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible,—or from one of our elder poets,—in a paragraph of to-day’s newspaper. ”

“ But whether these accounts are credited or not, we are certain that the stature of the human body is by no means fixed. We are ourselves a kind of giants, in comparison of the Laplanders; nor are these the most diminutive people to be found upon the earth. ”

“ His body was wel compact and strong, his stature under 6 foote (I beleeve about two inches) his head so shaped, as you might see it a storehouse and shop both of a vast treasury of natural parts. His temper exceeding fyery, as I have known, but the flame of it kept downe, for the most part, or soon allayed with thos moral endowments he had. ”

“ The stature, which varies remarkably throughout the continent, is, in the quarter of which we treat, generally above the middle size. This property, however, is confined to the men, the females being usually below that standard—a fact which may be confidently ascribed to the oppressive drudgery they are compelled to undergo. The limbs, in both sexes, are well proportioned, and few instances of deformity ever occur. ”

“ Grand stature, suited to his exalted position, showing the superiority of mind and character; a face like an angel’s, so fair it is; his head bald like Cæsar’s, and he wears a beard, which is not the English custom. ”

“ PHYSICAL STATURE.—Men and women generally increase in stature until the twenty-fifth year, and it is safe to assume, that perfection of function is not established until maturity of bodily development is completed. ”

“ The average difference in civilised races in the stature of men and women at present is about four inches, but twice this difference is very usually found to exist between the male and [Pg 41] female skeletons of the Polished Stone Period in the long barrows. ”

“ No such material explanation is applicable to the Basque stature. Some other cause must be adduced. Ought not artificial selection, if indeed it once became operative in a given ethnic group, to work in this direction? Goodly stature is wide regarded as a type of beauty. ”

“ As an adult he is described as "tall of stature, and slender of body, whereunto all his members were proportionately correspondent, of comely visage, where did glisten his bountifulness of disposition. ”

“ I am below the average stature for a man, and unusually light for my volume, weighing only 110 pounds stripped from the age of nineteen to twenty-five, after I had attained my maximum height of five feet five inches. ”

“ In order to give us a conception of the huge frames of these people, they dragged forth a bone, or rather a thigh-bone, of one of the giants, which was very strong, and measured the length of a man of good stature. ”

“ Notwithstanding that growth is an evolution, it manifests itself also by an absolute augmentation of mass; and the linear index of such augmentation is given by the growth in stature, or by its variations at different ages.
This exceedingly important measurement ought to be taken in the case of all pupils; and undoubtedly in the course of time anthropometry will form a part of our school equipment; because, by following the increase of stature in a child, we follow his physical development. ”

“ They are said to have been remarkable as men and women of extraordinary stature and of uncommon perfection of form. I have been told of many chiefesses nearly or quite six feet in height, and many chiefs from six feet two inches to six feet six, and in one case six feet seven inches high. ”