OF THE GREEK NOSE.
CLASS II.—THE GREEK, or straight Nose, is perfectly straight; any
deviation from a right line must be strictly noticed. If the
deviation tend to convexity, it approaches the Roman, and the
character is improved by an accession of energy; on the other hand,
when the deviation is towards concavity, it partakes of the
Celestial, and the character is weakened. It should be fine, and
well chiselled, but not sharp.
It indicates Refinement of character; love for the Fine Arts, and
_Belles-Lettres_; astuteness, craft, and a preference for indirect
rather than direct action. Its owner is not without some energy in
pursuit of that which is agreeable to his tastes; but, unlike the
owner of the Roman Nose, he cannot exert himself in _opposition_ to
his tastes. When associated with the Roman Nose, and distended
slightly at the end by the Cogitative, it indicates the most useful
and intellectual of characters, and is the highest and most
beautiful form which the organ can assume.
This Nose, like the Roman, takes its name from the people of whom it was
most characteristic—physically and mentally. On these two parallel facts
(with others of a like kind) much stress maybe justly laid, although
they are old and trite. But this very triteness is the proof of their
truth. It proves that the hypothesis which attributes certain mental
characteristics, well known to belong to the Romans, to the Roman
Nose,—and so of the Greeks to the Greek Nose, and of the Jews to the
Jewish Nose,—is founded in nature; and, so far from being a fanciful
invention, is a fact long recognized, and as old as the creation of the
human proboscis.
Requesting the reader to bear in mind the form of the Greek Nose and its
indications, we would remark how exactly the latter correspond with the
character of the ancient Greeks as a nation. It is unnecessary to
expatiate on their high excellence in art, their lofty philosophy, their
acute reasoning, or their poetical inspiration—these are known to every
school-boy. Their craftiness, their political falsehood, and shrewd
deceitfulness, were celebrated in ancient days as now, and “_Græcia
mendax_,” “_Danaûm insidiæ_,” were epithets as true and as commonly
applied in the time of Augustus, as at the present hour by modern
travellers. “_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!_” exclaims the cautious
Priest of Troy, referring to the well-known character of the treacherous
enemy. And what a contrast to anything recorded in Roman warfare does
the Trojan War itself exhibit! The Romans would have battered down the
walls with their furious engines; the wily Greeks invent a stratagem by
which the enemy pull down their own walls. If we may credit Homer—and,
if not for the facts, we may for his fine portraitures of Grecian
character—there was a vast deal more talking than fighting during the
ten years’ siege. There was plenty of the _morale_, but very little of
the _physique_, as a Frenchman would say. In truth, the contrast between
the Romans and the Greeks was as great in the latter as in the former.
The Greeks were no nation of hardy warriors, though they were always
quarrelling among themselves in petty battles which have won an
undeserved celebrity by the talents of their historians. Were it not for
the writings of Thucydides, the Peloponnesian War would rank no higher
than the border skirmishes of the Scots and Northumbrians, or the
expeditions of the Sioux and Pawnees. A simple geographical fact is
sufficient to prove this against all the moral power of the most glowing
and eloquent historian. Greece is about one-fourth less than Scotland,
and its recorded population was about the same. Is it possible that, in
such a corner, a war of seven-and-twenty years’ duration could have been
more than a series of skirmishes and predatory expeditions? More than
that must, in a much briefer space, have annihilated the whole
population. More than that, and at the end of twenty-seven years the
States of Greece must have been in the condition of the celebrated
Kilkenny cats, which fought till only the tip of the tail of one of them
was left. The battles of Marathon, Thermopylæ, &c., against foreign
foes, rank higher, because they were fought and won under a high
intellectual inspiration, entirely consistent with Class II.—the love of
country. But with these battles the war ended; the Greeks did not, as
the Romans would have done, follow up the defeat of the enemy with a
counter-incursion into his country and an attempt at foreign conquest.
He was driven from their territory; their hearths were secure; their
gods replaced on their pedestals; their temples re-purified, and that
satisfied _their_ ambition. The Greeks made no foreign conquests;
boasted no extended empire. The wars of Alexander seem the only
exception; but of that Monarch himself we have already treated, and of
his battles it may be said, that they were not fought by Peloponnesian
Greeks (of whom we are now speaking) but by Macedonians and Asiatic
mercenaries; who were, in all probability—though it would demand a
volume on ethnography to prove it—a wholly different race.
But, if we were only prepared to substantiate our hypothesis by these
general facts of national characteristics, it would be very
unsatisfactory; as it is obvious that nothing could be easier than to
manufacture and support a theory by moulding it to a single general
fact. It is by the multiplicity of isolated _individual_ cases that the
hypothesis must stand or fall. And we are happily in a position again to
adduce these in its favour.
The following persons will, on an examination of their portraits, be
found to have possessed Greek Noses:—
Petrarch.
Milton (in youth).
Spenser.
Boccacio.
Canova.
Raffaelle.
Claude.
Rubens.
Murillo.
Titian.
Addison.
Voltaire.
Byron.
Shelley.
[Illustration:
RAFFAELLE.
]
It will be perceived that this list (which, like all the others, might
be very much extended) contains the names of poets and artists of the
highest _beauty_ and elegance, though not of the most intense and
deepest _thought_. Beauty is their highest excellence, their chief
praise. Exquisite melody, ætherial fancies, felicitous expression, a
fine perception of the Beautiful, as distinguished from the Sublime,
whether on paper or canvass, (for it is only the difference in the
_mécanique_, or vehicle of expression, which constitutes the difference
between the Artist and the Poet), are their best attributes. Addison and
Voltaire are the only two of the above instances who never excelled in
Poetry or Art, though both assiduously courted the former Muse.
Nevertheless Addison is an illustrious instance in our behalf. Is not
the _beauty_, the correctness, the euphony of his style still an object
of emulation? Has it not for above a century been the model of good
writing? And yet it is too true that nothing equally permanent can be
found, which is at the same time so weak and tame in thought, so shallow
in reasoning, or so lax in argument. In fact, it owes all its permanency
to its euphony, its musical harmony and exactness of expression.
[Illustration:
ADDISON.
]
The absence of a noticeable development of the Cogitative (Class III.)
accounts for the deficiency of higher qualities in these disciples of
the Beautiful. For this reason the Greek nose is more interesting in its
compound form, Sub-class II⁄III the “_Greco-Cogitative_,” than in its
simple form.
Of the above instances, Voltaire is the most decidedly deficient in the
Cogitative, which is always essential to indicate a capacity for the
deep, close and serious thought requisite to constitute a truly great
and philosophic mind. The angle at which his nose stood from his face
was quite 45°, and therefore much too great to exhibit faithfully the
higher characteristics of the Greek. It was, moreover, exceedingly
deficient in the broadening property of Class III; and we presume that
no one will assert that Voltaire possessed “a truly great and
philosophic mind.” Surely no man, who ever wrote so much, and on such
varied subjects, ever devoted less time to close intense thought. He did
not even stop to examine his facts; but, having a brilliant wit and “the
pen of a ready writer,” he rapidly evolved some fanciful theory, or
started some fallacious argument from such unauthenticated data as he
happened to be possessed of. All this was indicated by his sharp Greek
Nose; for it was acuteness, not depth; readiness, not thought; careless,
unprincipled wit, not study; attractive style, not sound matter, which
earned him his short-lived fame. Hence, Voltaire, though striving all
his life to gain the title of philosopher, never succeeded even in the
most unphilosophic age and country since the revival of learning, and is
now, we believe, wholly excluded from the dignity. It has been truly and
wittily said of Voltaire, that “he _half_ knew everything, ‘from the
cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out
of the wall,’ and he wrote of them all, and laughed at them all.”
It will be noticed that the foregoing list contains the name of “Milton,
_in youth_.” It is inserted thus, because his portrait, taken _ætat._
XXIII, shows that his Nose was not then developed into the Cogitative
form which it assumed in later years, when troublous times and anxious
cares caused him to reflect profoundly on events around him. Then it
expanded at the base and became, like the Noses of all the great men of
those stirring times, largely compounded with the Cogitative; under the
compounds of which class it will again, at a later period of his life,
appear. From this corresponding change in feature with change in
character, we might, if we thought proper, demand the same proof for our
system which the phrenologists demand for theirs, from the gradual
alteration in the skull of the boy Bidder; and though (as our system is,
we conceive, better based than theirs) it is unnecessary to lay as much
stress upon a single fact as they are compelled to do, yet we think it
right not to let this proof pass wholly without observation.
Having already treated at some length of the Romano-Greek Nose
(Sub-class I⁄II.), it is unnecessary to enlarge here upon its close ally
the Greco-Roman II⁄I. Of course they are somewhat similar in appearance
and character; only as in every compound form, one simple one will
generally prevail—Nature, like a bad cook, not always mixing her
ingredients in due proportions—it is necessary to distinguish them into
different sub-classes.
A noticeable predominance of one form will at once indicate to which
sub-class a Nose belongs, and the character will be found to be affected
accordingly. Thus a Romano-Greek Nose indicates a more energetic and
less refined character than a Greco-Roman. But these are the minutiæ of
the science, with which it is not advisable at present to embarrass the
reader.
[Illustration:
BYRON.
]