A ray of light is singly received by man, woman delights to view it through a prism, in all its dazzling colours. She contemplates the rainbow as the promise of peace; he extends his inquiring eye over the whole horizon.

Woman laughs, man smiles; woman weeps, man remains silent. Woman is in anguish when man weeps, and in despair when man is in anguish; yet has she often more faith than man. Without religion, man is a diseased creature, who would persuade himself he is well, and needs not a physician: but woman, without religion, is raging and monstrous. A woman with a beard is not so disgusting as a woman who acts the free-thinker; her sex is formed to pity and religion. To them Christ first appeared; but he was obliged to prevent them from too ardently and too hastily embracing him- Touch me nol. They are prompt to receive and seize novelty, and become its enthusiasts.

In the presence and proximity of him they love, the whole world is forgotten. They sink into the most incurable melancholy, as they rise to the most enraptured heights.

There is more imagination in male sensation, in the female more heart. When communicative, they are more communicative than man; when secret, more secret. In general they are more patient, long-suffering, credulous, benevolent, and modest.

Woman is not a foundation on which to build. She is the gold, silver, precious stones, wood,

hay, stubble; (1 Cor. iii. 12.) the materials for building on the male foundation. She is the leaven, or, more expressively, the oil to the vinegar of man; the second part to the book of man. Man singly, is but half a man, at least but half human; a king without a kingdom. Woman, who feels properly what she is, whether still or in motion, rests upon the man; nor is man what he may and ought to be but in conjunction with woman. Therefore it is not good that man should be alone, but that he should leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and that they two shall be one flesh."

A Word on the physiognomonical Relation of the Sexes.

Man is the most firm, woman the most flexible. Man is the straightest, woman the most bending. Man stands stedfast, woman gently retreats. Man surveys and observes, woman glances and feels.

Man is serious, woman is gay.

Man is the tallest and broadest, woman the smallest and weakest.

Man is rough and hard, woman is smooth and soft.

Man is brown, woman is fair.

Man is wrinkly, woman is not.

The hair of man is strong and short, of woman more long and pliant.

The eyebrows of man are compressed, of woman less frowning.

Man has most convex lines, woman most con

cave.

Man has most straight lines, woman most curved.

The countenance of man, taken in profile, is not so often perpendicular as that of the woman: Man is the most angular, woman most round.

CHAP. XXXV.

On the Physiognomy of Youth.

Extracts from Zimmerman's Life of Haller.

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

"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."

My worthy Zimmerman, how much of the true, how much of the false, at least of the inde

man.

finite, 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 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; I always, therefore, perceive more in the countenance of a man than of a boy. Dissimulation may indeed conceal the moral materials, but not 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 colouring of manhood.

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

A great deal has been said of the openness, un

degeneracy, simplicity, and ingénuousness of a childish and youthful countenance. It may be so; but, 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 one that is 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, quickmoving 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 of 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