XIV

OF THE PHYSIOG NOMY OF YOUTH.

Extracts from Zimmermann's Life of Haller.

"THE first years of the youth contain the history of the man. They develope the qualities of the soul, the materials of future conduct, and the true features of temperament. In riper years dissimulation is predominant, or, at least, that modification of our thoughts which is the consequence of knowledge and experience.

"The characteristics of the passions, which are undeniably discovered to us by the peculiar art denominated physiognomy, are effaced in the countenance by age; while, on the contrary, their true signs are visible in youth.

"The original materials of man are unchangeable; he is drawn in colours that have no deceit. The boy is the work of nature, the man of art.”

How much of the true, how much of the false, worthy Zimmermann, at least, of the indefinite, is there in this passage!

According to my conception, I see the

clay, the mass, in the youthful countenance; but not the form of the future man.

There are passions and powers of youth, and passions and powers of age. These often are contradictory in the same man, yet are they contained one within the other. Time produces the expression of latent traits. A man is but a boy seen through a magnifying glass; therefore, I always perceive more in the countenance of a man than a boy. Dissimulation may indeed conceal the moral materials, but cannot alter their form. The growth of powers and passions imparts to the first undefined sketch of what is called a boy's countenance the firm traits, shading, and colourings of manhood, There are youthful countenances which declare whether they ever shall, or shall not, ripen into man. This they declare, but they only declare it to the great physiognomist. I will acknowledge, when (which seldom happens) the form of the head is beautiful, conspicuous, proportionate, greatly featured, well defined and not too feebly coloured, it will be difficult that the result should be common or vulgar. I likewise know that where the form is distorted, especially when it is transverse, extended, undefined, or too harshly defined, much can rarely be ex

pected. But how much do the forms of youthful countenances change, even in the system of the bones!

Much has been said of the openness, undegeneracy, simplicity, and ingenuousness of a childish and youthful countenance. So be it said; for my own part, I must own, I am not so fortunate as to be able to read a youthful countenance with the same degree of quickness and precision (however small that degree) as a manly. The more I converse with and consider children, the more difficult do I find it to pronounce, with certainty, concerning their character. Not that I do not meet countenances, among children and boys, most strikingly, and positively, significant: yet seldom is the great outline of the youth so definite as for us to be able to read in it the man. The most remarkably advantageous young countenances may, easily, through accident, terror, hurt, or severity in parents or tutors, be internally injured, without any apparent injury to the whole. The beautiful, the eloquent form, the firm forehead, the deep, sharp eye, the cheerful, open, free, quick-moving mouth remain; there will only be a drop of troubled water in what else appears so clear; only an uncommon, scarcely remarkable,

perhaps convulsive, motion of the mouth. Thus is hope overthrown, and beauty rendered indistinct.

As simplicity is the soil for variety, so is innocence for the products of vice.

Simplicity, not of a youth, but of a child, in thee the Omniscient only views the progress of sleeping passion; the gentle wrinkles of youth, the deep of manhood, and the manifold and relaxed of age. Oh how different was my infantine countenance to my present, in form and speech!

O mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos!

But as transgression follows innocence, so doth virtue transgression, and eternal good virtue, on earth.

Doth the vessel say to the potter, "where fore hast thou made me thus ?"

"I am little, but I am I."

He who created me did not create me to be a child; but a man. Wherefore should I ruminate on the pleasures of childhood, unburthened with cares? I am what I am. I will forget the past, nor weep that I am no longer a child, when I contemplate children in all their loveliness. To join the powers of man with the simplicity of the child is the height of all my hopes; God grant they may be accomplished.

XV.

A WORD TO TRAVELLERS.

THREE things appear to me indispensable to travellers; health, money, and physiognomy. Therefore a physiognomonical word to travellers. I could wish, indeed, that, instead of a word, a traveller's physiognomonical companion were written; but this must be done by an experienced traveller. In the mean time I shall bid them farewell, with the following short advice.

What, travellers, do you seek: what wish? What would ye see more remarkable, more singular, more rare, more worthy to be examined, than the varieties of humanity? This indeed is fashionable-Ye enquire after man; ye seek the wisest, best, and greatest

men.

Especially the most famous.

And wherefore is your curiosity limited to seeing, only? Would it not be better you should illuminate your own minds by the light of others, and animate yourselves by their ardour? His curiosity is childish which is merely confined to seeing; whose ambition desires only to say, I have beheld that man. He who would disregard views so