"Physiognomy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the department of physics and physiology. We will let Guizot, the historian, speak for the political and social realm: 'All things, at their origin, are nearly confounded in one and the same physiognomy; it is only in their aftergrowth that their variety shows itself. Then begins a new development which urges forward societies toward that free and lofty unity, the glorious object of the efforts and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... missed our connection, but the platform of a station where two lines meet, offers, under such circumstances, so diverse and diverting a spectacle that we hardly regretted the delay. It is here that any one interested in physiognomy can best study and judge the masses, for it is as though the very texture from which France is woven were laid bare before him. This spectacle is constantly changing, constantly renewed, at times deeply moving. No face can be, or is, indifferent, in these days and one no longer ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... judgments at different periods, and to correct them! First impressions are of great importance, if given only as such; but if laid down as decided opinions, how apt they are to be erroneous! It is like judging of individuals by their physiognomy and manners, without having had time to study their character. We all do so more or less, but how ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... were sullen, and showed no signs of surprise or curiosity on the sudden appearance of strangers at their fireside. The sample was far from prepossessing. One of the men, who seemed to eye us with suspicion, had just the physiognomy one should assign ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Out of the ruins of political independence still towered the monuments of civilisation of a mighty past which gave to this country moral independence, and prevented the obliteration of nationality. It would have mattered very little in the vast empire of Alexander if one province had a special physiognomy. It was different, however, with the Lagidae: their power was concentrated in Egypt, and they were therefore compelled to obliterate the separation existing between the conquering and the conquered races, and fuse them, if possible, into one. A great ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... well defined chin and a mouth plain, but full of energy and expression, and similar to Sterne's, the contour, of whose face I always thought my brother's much resembled. I have thus given, to please the lover of physiognomy, "a shadow portrait," not "a Myall's photograph," which I hope will not only satisfy the physiognomist, but which I think they, who but even slightly remember Henry Cooper, have but to place before the tablet of their memory and view the shade ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... is just as I expected. There have been circumstances in the Caswall family which lead one to believe that they have had from the earliest times some extraordinary mesmeric or hypnotic faculty. Indeed, a skilled eye could read so much in their physiognomy. That shot of yours, whether by instinct or intention, of the hawk and the pigeon was peculiarly apposite. I think we may settle on that as a fixed trait to be ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... dilemma; also he no longer knew what course to adopt; the longer he left it the more it would resist. From this combat, there must result one conquered and one contused—a diabolical contusion which he wished to keep distant from his physiognomy by God's help until after his death. The poor seneschal had already great trouble to follow his lady to the chase, without being dismounted; he sweated under the weight of his trappings, and almost expired in that pursuit wherein his frisky wife ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... horse is one of those generous and somewhat careless animals that, if not taken firmly from the first, will surely give itself away. Essential to a man who has to do with horses is a complete closeness of physiognomy, otherwise the animal will never know what is expected of him. The more that is expected of him, the closer must be the expression of his friends, or a grave fiasco may ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... student. Not though he sat waiting for his "two- hours' wife," whom undoubtedly he had married for love—pure love— the only reason for which anyone, man or woman, old or young, ought to dare to marry. That he could feel as very few have the power to feel, no one who was any judge of physiognomy could doubt for a moment; yet he sat perfectly quiet—the quietness of a man accustomed to something safer and higher than self-suppression—self-control. When Mr. Ferguson came in, he rose and began to speak about the weather and local topics ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... smile which broadened without lighting up the sub-Mongol physiognomy of the city editor, Banneker suspected something. As he sat writing page after page, conscientiously setting forth every germane fact, the recollection of that speculative, estimating smile began to play ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... been a vagabond in a non-professional way, I have a theory about the physiognomy of houses. Some have a forbidding, sick-the-dog-on-you aspect about them, not at all due, I am sure, to architectural design. Experience has taught me to be suspicious of such houses. Some houses have the appearance of death—their windows strike you as eyeless ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... and improvement, that they would be pleased to grant us our passports for the interior. To this address, these high authorities, who seemed not much given to "the melting mood," after making up a physiognomy, as severe, and as iron bound as their coast, laconically observed, that the laws of the republic must be enforced, that they should write to our embassador to know who we were, and that in the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... our escort, whom we met just out of the city, were a ruffianly-looking set. The chief had received an ugly saber-cut across his face, which added to the forbidding expression of a naturally repulsive physiognomy. They were well mounted, however, and seemed inclined to be civil. We were allowed only an arrota (twenty-five pounds) of luggage, and were supposed to have no money with us; but on the night before we left we sewed a few ounces ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... Sir Arthur Chichester, descended from a family of great antiquity in Devon. He had served in Ireland as governor of Carrickfergus, admiral of Lough Neagh, and commander of the Fort of Mountjoy. Father Meehan describes him as malignant and cruel, with a physiognomy repulsive and petrifying; a Puritan of the most rigid character, utterly devoid of sympathy, solely bent on his own aggrandisement, and seeking it through the plunder and persecution of the Irish chieftains. That is the Irish view of his ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... during the five years of her London life, she, in addition to the work already mentioned, rewrote a translation from the Dutch of "Young Grandison;" translated from the French "Young Robinson," Necker on "Religious Opinions," and Lavater's "Physiognomy;" wrote a volume of "Original Stories from Real Life for Children," and compiled a "Female Reader." As these works were undertaken for money rather than for fame, she did not through them exert any personal influence on contemporary ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... not endowed with great perspicacity, did not observe the expression which his words had given to the physiognomy of the stranger. The latter rose from the front of the window, upon the sill of which he had leaned with his elbow, and knitted his ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... medium size; her figure was moulded with rare perfection; her movements had a softness and an elasticity which gave to her walk something ethereal, without diminishing the majesty of a sovereign. Her very expressive physiognomy mirrored all the emotions of her soul without losing aught of the enchanting gentleness which was the very substance of her character. At the moment of joy or merriment she was beautiful to behold. Never did a woman more than she justify ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... crestfallen demeanor with the inclemencies of the season, were peasants. The one was an old man, gray-haired, stooping, and apparently sixty years of age: the other, his son, as I afterward found out, was a mere youth of, at the most, twenty. They were strikingly alike in physiognomy, notwithstanding the difference in their years, but neither had anything at all remarkable either in his looks or general appearance: both were small, clumsy-limbed, somewhat simple-faced, rather ugly; and on the whole they were a very commonplace, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Elizabeth and Catherine II. of Russia are the only two monarchs of their set on record who were at once sovereigns and lovers. Anne of Austria looked with a sort of terror at the threatening aspect of the cardinal—his physiognomy in such moments was not ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sticking all ways out, as of yore, was quite white now. His old cheeks were softly rounded, with some colour in them; strangely enough, that something childlike always noticeable in the general contour of his physiognomy had become much more marked. Like his handwriting, he looked childish and senile. He showed his age most in his unintelligently furrowed, anxious forehead and in his round, innocent eyes, which appeared to me weak and blinking ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... we have proceeded to borrow direct from the Latin. Thus, 'people' is indeed 'populus', but it was 'peuple' first, while 'popular' is a direct transfer of a Latin vocable into our English glossary. So too 'enemy' is 'inimicus', but it was first softened in the French, and had its Latin physiognomy to a great degree obliterated, while 'inimical' is Latin throughout; 'parish' is 'paroisse', but 'parochial' is 'parochialis'; 'chapter' is ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... reverted to the men, three of whom were absorbed in the greasy checkerboard. The fourth man was the one who had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean. Not much flesh was there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy. He stroked a lean chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle holding than familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle. It was a lazy hand. The man looked lazy. If he spoke at all it would be with lazy speech, yet Jean had not encountered ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of a people' is always of a similar shade in its vices and its virtues, in its frivolities and in its labor. 'It is this physiognomy which it is necessary to discover', and every document is good, from the hall of a casino to the church, from the foibles of a fashionable woman to the suggestions of a revolutionary leader. I am therefore quite sure that this 'American soul', the principal interest and the great object ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... aquiline nose, an agreeable mouth, and her chin, though long, was not mis-shapen. Her hair was auburn, her eyebrows black and rather thick, and her blue eyes had a gentleness which was often affected, but oftener still a mixture of pride. Her physiognomy was not deficient in expression; but this expression never discovered what was passing in the soul of Catherine, or rather it served her the better to disguise it."—Life of Catherine II., by W. Tooke, in. 381 (translated from Vie de Catherine II. (J.H. Castera), ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... paid great attention to the art of physiognomy and believed that character and fortune could be foretold not from the face only but from marks upon the neck and hands. Three lines under the chin like those at the mouth of a conch (Sankha) were regarded as a peculiarly auspicious sign indicating, as did also the mark of Vishnu's discus ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801), Swiss writer whose only widely read book was a tract on physiognomy (Physiognomische Fragmente zur Befoerderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe). The Victorians put much stock ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... ugliest living face is better. Hence those who write in Latin and copy the manner of ancient authors, may be said to speak through a mask; the reader, it is true, hears what they say, but he cannot observe their physiognomy too; he cannot see their style. With the Latin works of writers who think for themselves, the case is different, and their style is visible; writers, I mean, who have not condescended to any sort of ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the open qualities of social feelings. I remember, when a youth, I was extremely fond of attending the House of Commons, to hear the debates; and I shall never forget the repulsive loftiness which I thought marked the physiognomy of Pitt; harsh and unbending, like a settled frost, he seemed wrapped in the mantle of egotism and sublunary conceit; and it was from the uninviting expression of this great man's countenance, that I first drew my conceptions as to how a proud ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... be any of my old acquaintances?" said she; but she could not be satisfied with this idea; the new comers, much larger, had also a very different physiognomy from that of her old friends. They had oval eyes, with a network over them; a protruding jaw; antennae of twelve olive scales, terminated by a button. Their brown corselets covered with a tawny fur; their brilliant cuirasses, and their legs of unequal length,—all these things ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... morning had subsided into a sunshiny afternoon, nearly two years ago, when a young man, slender, above the middle height, with a physiognomy thoughtful yet delicate, his brown hair worn long, slight whiskers, on his chin a tuft, knocked at the door of a house in Carrington Street, May Fair. His mien and his costume denoted a character of the class of artists. He wore a pair of green trousers, braided ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... admit any black man, possessing the attributes of true manhood or any good qualities, to my friendship, even to a brotherhood with myself; and to respect him for such, as much as if he were of my own colour and race. Neither his colour, nor any peculiarities of physiognomy should debar him with me from any rights he could fairly claim as a man. "Have these men—these black savages from pagan Africa," I asked myself, "the qualities which make man loveable among his fellows? ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... several stories from Little Dorrit to the end. The rest, not lifted into that higher notice by such favour of their creator, must remain like any other undistinguished crowd. But among them may perhaps be detected, by those who have special insight for the physiognomy of a name, some few with so great promise in them of fun and character as will make the "mute inglorious" fate which has befallen them a subject for special regret; and much ingenious speculation will probably ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... forbade him to make laws repugnant to the laws of England. But Maryland was distant, and wise management might do much. Catholics, Anglicans, Puritans, Dissidents, and Nonconformists of almost any physiognomy, might come and be at home, unpunished for variations ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... remained at the window, looking on all sides, and trying to read in the physiognomy of every passer-by whether that individual was an actor in the mysterious drama which was preparing, and in which she instinctively understood that Raoul was to play the chief part. She remained, then, with a beating heart, her neck stretched out, and her eyes wandering hither and thither, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact, which, however, bears no reference in itself to, and is not connected by any thread whatever with the story which we are relating. We mention the fact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... English writers on the early history of Canada, most of whom have been able to see nothing but the spectre of paternalism in every domain of colonial life. It is quite true, as Tocqueville tells us, that the physiognomy of a government can be best judged in its colonies, for there its merits and faults appear as through a microscope. But in Canada it was the merits rather than the faults of French feudalism which came to the front in bold ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... youth, was as comely and symmetrical a cone as ever graced the galaxy of volcanic peaks. To-day, while still young as compared with the obelisk crags of the Alps, it has already taken on the venerable and deeply-scarred physiognomy of a veteran. It is no longer merely an overgrown boy among the hills, but, cut and torn by the ice of centuries, it is fast assuming the dignity and interest of a patriarch ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... dead jaw that would have dropped but for the straps that held it—all these things beat themselves in on his intelligence as if they would make an eternal pressure there. It was as if the place had a moral physiognomy of its own, and as if through countless details he absorbed an instinct as to ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... them, they find no other pastime then to entertain each other in all manner of kind imbracements, and to chear up their hearts therein to the utmost. Here it may be plainly seen how pleasant and delightfull it is for the young woman, because her physiognomy begins to grow the longer ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... worthy the attention of those who are curious in the subject of which they treat, namely, the human face divine. They are two marble busts, facing each other; one of the founder of the Library, the other of its first President, Washington Irving. A finer study in physiognomy than these two busts present can nowhere be found; for never were two men more unlike than Astor and Irving, and never were character and personal history more legibly recorded than in these portraits in ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... we found them in almost a complete state of nudity, with only a narrow shred of cloth around their loins. They speak the Sauteux language; and I had much difficulty in making myself understood by them. In their physiognomy and personal appearance they exhibit all the characteristic features of the genuine aboriginal race; and this party certainly appeared, one and all, to be "without a cross;" but there had been long a trading post at Lac la Pluie, and I noticed, in a neighbouring camp, a lass with ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... shifting eyes (symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which led me to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage. Phrenology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often among civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and features is impeded by the external pressure of education, accident, example, habit, necessity, and what not. But they are tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind of man in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... pretty fables that must be disregarded, and it seems likely that Philip only exerted himself on his painter's behalf because he wished him to superintend the arrangements for the festivities that were to celebrate the marriage of the Infanta Maria Teresa with Louis XIV. If we may read character in physiognomy, there is little risk that Philip would have behaved generously ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan
... down on her knees in front of the bookcase and cross-questioned Bruce on the physiognomy of the volume. She asked whether it was a novel, whether it was blue, whether it belonged to the library, whether it was Stevenson, whether it was French, or if it was ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... identical chair that had passed us a little before! — and on stepping into the house behold the very same young ladies! They were richly dressed, and well formed, and would no doubt have appeared handsome, but for the hostile passions which glared from their eyes, and gave their whole physiognomy a fury-like expression. They asked us, with great pertness, "what business we had there? The gentleman of the house," continued they, "is not at home, and there are no provisions here for you, and to be sure, you ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... place in the world is there so much variety of complexion and physiognomy as in Lima. From the delicately fair creole daughter of European parents, to the jet black Congo negro, people of every gradation of color are seen living in intimate relation one with another. The two extreme classes—the whites and blacks—are ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... Plunkett, and I do not question in the least that she believes the cast in the old gentleman's optic never to have existed save in the original portrait-painter's imagination. I must admit that, notwithstanding the changes made by local talent in my ancestor's physiognomy, I am occasionally struck myself with the strong resemblance specified by Josephine; and the longer I live the less doubt I have that she is a far cleverer person than your ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... was greatly pleased with the man, and spoke of my satisfaction to all my other acquaintances. Apparently what I said of him came to his ear. He one day thanked me for having thought him a good-natured man. I observed something in his forced smile which, in my eyes, totally changed his physiognomy, and which has since frequently occurred to my mind. I cannot better compare this smile than to that of Panurge purchasing the Sheep of Dindenaut. Our acquaintance had begun a little time after my arrival at the Hermitage, to which place he frequently came to see me. I was already ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... several of them sported moustaches. Their hair fell curling over their shoulders; and most of them wore their collars turned down, displaying healthy-looking, sun-tanned throats. I was struck with a resemblance in their physiognomy. Their faces did not resemble each other; but there was an unmistakable similarity in the expression of the eye; no doubt, the mark that had been made by ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... of the short, heavily built John Bayliss, of two hundred pounds avoirdupois. Of course, a fit of sickness might reduce a man's flesh, but it did not appear to me as especially likely to increase his height. As his face was covered with wet cloths I could not see the round physiognomy of John Bayliss, but passing my hand over the face I found it long and thin featured. I whispered to the doctor that I would like to notice his pulse. He said I could do so on the jugular vein. I did so, and ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... in a few generations Lidley. But comparatively few surnames were susceptible of such simple treatment, and in the great majority of cases the name underwent a more or less arbitrary perversion which gave it a more English physiognomy. Especially interesting from this point of view is the list of—"Straungers residing and dwellinge within the city of London and the liberties thereof," drawn up in 1618. The names were probably taken down by the officials of the different wards, who, differing themselves in intelligence and ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... through we saw some of the villagers engaged in slaughtering calves and sheep in the middle of the road, the blood running down into a self-made gutter; it was a sickening sight. The people themselves have a most peculiar physiognomy, especially the men, who in addition to long beards wear corkscrew ringlets, which give them a very odd appearance. Their principal garment is a kind of long brown dressing-gown, which in its filthy grimness suits the wearer down to ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... Squire hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom they once met on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher his physiognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laughter;—indeed, I have rarely met with an old gentleman who took absolutely offence at the imputed ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... we went to Lady Duff Gordon's, who is the daughter of Mrs. Austin, where was a most agreeable party, and among others, Andersen, the Danish poet-author of the "Improvisatore." He has a most striking poetical physiognomy, but as he talked only German or bad French, I left him to Mr. ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... patois, in Monaco. You would never spot it in the somewhat Teutonic cosmopolitanism of the Condamine and Monte Carlo tradesmen and hotel servants. It is not apparent in the impassive croupiers of the Casino. But within a few hundred yards, in half a dozen streets and lanes, the physiognomy, the mentality, the language of the people make you realize that regarding Monaco as a separate country is not wholly a polite fiction to relieve the French Government of the responsibility for the Casino. These people ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... attracts but scanty attention. I doubt whether English observers would discover any very striking trace of it in the ancient town of Salem. Still, with all respect to a York and a Shrewsbury, to a Toledo and a Verona, Salem has a physiognomy in which the past plays a more important part than the present. It is of course a very recent past; but one must remember that the dead of yesterday are not more alive than those of a century ago. I know not of what picturesqueness Hawthorne was conscious in his respectable birthplace; I suspect ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... evening, and they had dined together again at the St. James Club—Jimmie Dale, and Carruthers of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS. From Clayton and a discussion of the Metzer murder, the conversation had turned, not illogically, upon the physiognomy of criminals in general. Jimmie Dale, lazily ensconced now in a lounging chair in one of the club's private library rooms, flicked a minute speck of cigar ash from the sleeve of his dinner jacket, and smiled whimsically across ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... of Cockburn, bald, almost in youth, with its pliant, refined features, and its fresh tint upon a cheek always clear, generally high in colour, was a strong contrast to the rigid petitesse of Jeffrey's physiognomy; much more so to the large proportions of Mackintosh; or to the ponderous, plain, and, later in life, swarthy countenance of Sydney Smith. Lord Webb Seymour, the brother of the late Duke of Somerset, gentle, modest, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Ariadne fast asleep in the island of Dia, to seek her fortune, that was erst his loving mistress. [5685]Nunc primum Dorida vetus amator contempsi, as he said, Doris is but a dowdy to this. As he that looks himself in a glass forgets his physiognomy forthwith, this flattering glass of love will be diminished by remove; after a little absence it will be remitted, the next fair object will likely alter it. A young man in [5686]Lucian was pitifully in love, he came to the theatre by chance, and by seeing ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... his head to look across the street; and immediately I recognized, by the pallid yellow complexion and narrow eye-slits, the physiognomy of a typical Japanese. The man remained talking for nearly another minute; then, drawing out his other leg, he turned towards us; and now I perceived that the right side of his face, over the prominent cheekbone, was discoloured as ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... manor house, which preserved the grace of a superannuated coquette, down to the grottos incrusted with shell-work, where slumbered the loves of a bygone age, everything in this antique demesne had retained the physiognomy of former days. Everything seemed to speak still of ancient customs, of the manners of long ago, of former gallantries, and of the elegant trivialities so dear to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... surpassing; but, for her chastity, you cannot avail to testify with certitude of her case." "And how," asked the Imam, "can it be possible unto you, O my lord the Amir, to know from her face that she is pure? An this be so, your highness is skilled in physiognomy. However, an your highness will vouchsafe to accompany me, I will carry you to her father's palace and make you known to the latter, and he shall bring her ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... simplest point. What is a comic physiognomy? Where does a ridiculous expression of the face come from? And what is, in this case, the distinction between the comic and the ugly? Thus stated, the question could scarcely be answered in any other than an arbitrary fashion. Simple though it ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... and slightly gray on the temples, grew together in a tuft over the high forehead. The closely-cropped beard left his chin free, and the fine mustache showed a mouth with a rather satirical curve and closely compressed lips A strong aquiline nose and narrow bright blue eyes completed a physiognomy indicating great reserve and a remarkable degree of melancholy. It is no advantage to a man to possess a Sphinx-like head. The pretty faces apparently full of secrets offer easy deceptions, and one expects that the mouth when open will reveal all that the eyes seem to mean. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... as he sat and turned over my collection of physiognomy, "is, I think, the best reading in the world. You get such sidelights on the owner's heredity, George; distant cousins caricature his features and point the moral of his nose, and ancestral faces prophesy his fate. His friends, moreover, figure the secret of his soul. But ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... the spirit of Mr. Hicks's physiognomy. He sat stroking his wide-spreading moustache. Jonas Hicks had a self-made moustache which seemed to have borrowed its style from the horns of a Texas steer. It might be said that, for the moment, he looked serious; but you could never tell from ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... pasturage and shade to the fancy, has so many cells with so many different kinds of honey, is so indulgent in its multiform appeals to human nature, that Protestantism will always show to Catholic eyes the almshouse physiognomy. The bitter negativity of it is to the Catholic mind incomprehensible. To intellectual Catholics many of the antiquated beliefs and practices to which the Church gives countenance are, if taken literally, as ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... till my father went to sleep," said the blacksmith, in a low voice, his physiognomy evincing much more curiosity than uneasiness. "But what is the matter, my good sister? How your countenance is changed! You weep! What has happened? About what danger would ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... known to travellers. Each of them wore its own expression, of peace, pleasantness, innocent mirth, or meditation. Each possessed its treasures, jealously guarded: its belfries, its churches, its canals, its old bridges, its quiet convents, its ancient houses, which gave it a special physiognomy, never to be forgotten by those who had ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... objectionable in the house of his master. So will this hunchbacked person be dragged to the place of execution, and be bowstrung, to the great relief of all who respect the five senses; A Respectful Physiognomy, Passionless Reflexion, Soft ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... that you may form what countenance you please. An open, serene, intelligent countenance, a little brightened by cheerfullness, not wrought into smiles or simpers, will presently become familiar and grow into habit. A year will with certainty accomplish it. Your physiognomy has naturally much of benevolence, and it will cost you some labour (which you may well spare) to eradicate it. Avoid, for ever avoid, a smile or sneer of contempt; never even mimic them. A frown of sullenness or discontent is but one degree less hateful. You seem to require these ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... too, there is a fair representation of the members of this faith. One can hardly pass through any section of the country without seeing and recognizing them by their physiognomy, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... you; but what assurance can you give me in relation to her virtue?" "What assurance do you require?" said Boubekir. "I must see her face," answered Zeyn; "that is enough to determine my resolution." "You are skilled then in physiognomy?" replied the muezin, smiling. "Well, come along with me to her father's: I will desire him to let you see her one moment ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... cuff-buttons simple. Especial attention should be given to the hair, which should be neither short nor long. It is better to err upon the too short side, as too long hair savors of affectation, destroys the shape of the physiognomy, and has a touch of vulgarity about it. Evening dress is the same for a large dinner party, a ball or an opera. In some circles, however, evening dress is considered an affectation, and it is as well to do as others do. On Sunday, morning dress is worn and on that day of the week no gentleman ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... brink of the crater, along the vine-clad slopes of Orotava, to the orange gardens and banana groves that skirt the shore. In scenes like these, it is not the peaceful charm uniformly spread over the face of nature that moves the heart, but rather the peculiar physiognomy and conformation of the land, the features of the landscape, the ever-varying outline of the clouds, and their blending with the horizon of the sea, whether it lies spread before us like a smooth and shining mirror, or is dimly seen through the morning mist. All that the senses can but ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... solid, red-bearded, undecorative Mr. Cass, Littleton may well have seemed a dandy. He was a slim young man with a delicate, sensitive face and intelligent brown eyes. He looked eager and interesting. In his case the almost gaunt American physiognomy was softened by a suggestion of poetic impulses. Yet the heritage of nervous energy was apparent. His appearance conveyed the impression of quiet trigness and gentility. His figure lent itself to his clothes, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... superstition; and yet, at this very time, Mesmer has got a hundred thousand pounds by animal magnetism in Paris, and Mainaduc is getting as much in London. There is a fortune-teller in Westminster who is making little less. Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set. The diving [divining?] rod is still considered as oracular in many places. Devils are cast out by seven ministers; and, to complete the disgraceful catalogue, slavery is vindicated in print and defended in the House of Peers! Poor human nature, when wilt ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... I say again, no other American city is so intensely American as New York. It is generally considered that the inhabitants of New England, the Yankees properly so called, have the American characteristics of physiognomy in the fullest degree. The lantern jaws, the thin and lithe body, the dry face on which there has been no tint of the rose since the baby's long-clothes were first abandoned, the harsh, thick hair, the thin ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... now in the country of the Bashinji, possessing the lowest negro physiognomy. At a village where they halted, they were attacked by the head man, who had been struck by one of the Makololo on their previous visit, although atonement had been made. A large body of the natives now rushed upon them as they were passing through ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... His physiognomy told truth. Arthur Stanley was, as his name implied, an Englishman of noble family; one of the many whom the disastrous wars of the Roses had rendered voluntary exiles. His father and four brothers had fallen in battle at Margaret's side. Himself and a twin brother, when ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... was called forth by the sudden and extraordinary change in Verty's physiognomy. As we have said, the young man had received the letter with a radiant flush, and a brilliant flash of his fine eye; and thus the reader will easily comprehend, when we inform him, that Verty imagined the letter to be from Redbud. Redbud was his one thought, the only ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... otherwise so aristocratic and solemn, assumed an unusual, an entirely new, physiognomy this winter. In society the topics of conversation were no longer art and poetry, the Pantheon and St. Peter, or what the newest amusement should be; but politics and the French Revolution were the all-engrossing topics, ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... bare-legged Highlander; figures such as are met in the Levant; school-boys with their books and lunch-boxes, Cockneys fresh from Piccadilly, a student who reminds us of Berlin, an American Indian, in pantaloons; a gaunt Western, a keen Yankee, and a broad Dutch physiognomy alternate; flower-venders, dog-pedlers, diplomates, soldiers, dandies, and vagabonds, pass and disappear; a firemen's procession, fallen horse, dead-lock of vehicles, military halt, or menagerie caravan, checks momently the advancing throng; and some beautiful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... and several other articles. Altogether, he was a somewhat formidable-looking character. By his side appeared, when the curtain drew up, a curious-looking clown, with a huge face, with all sorts of twists and curls in it, great big ears, a cock-up nose, and a short stumpy beard. This extraordinary physiognomy was covered with a high cap, which had a tassel and bells. He wore also a party-coloured waistcoat, huge full breeches of all the colours of the rainbow, hose of yellow, and long shoes with rosettes of vast size. He stood forth a veritable clown or ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the queen's apartment.[2142]—The king, however, as an indirect consequence, suffers the same torture and the same inaction as he imposes. He also is playing a part; all his steps and all his gestures have been determined beforehand; he has been obliged to arrange his physiognomy and his voice, never to depart from an affable and dignified air, to award judiciously his glances and his nods, to keep silent or to speak only of the chase, and to suppress his own thoughts, if he has any. One cannot indulge in reverie, meditate or be absent-minded ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... dark and bushy eyebrow. In the union of his features were found collected in one hideous assemblage all the most coarse and uncouth traits which had ever been exhibited singly in wooden cuts, and the observer was left in doubt whether this repulsive physiognomy expressed stupidity of intellect, or maliciousness of heart, or whether ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... Seldom is it given to one to see so cruel a face, seldom were criminal characteristics so clearly marked on any one's countenance and in the formation of the skull. A man with a face like that could be capable of any crime. His conversation supplied ample further testimony that his physiognomy had not deceived me. I had so far thought that my men were the coarsest, the most brutal individuals I had ever met, but they were not in it at all with the strange figure we had before us. The conversation of my men had seemed to me disgustingly vulgar, but it now appeared the acme of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... position at the table at the moment of my entrance. It was vis-a-vis a party of four persons,—two of the sterner, two of the softer sex. A back view interpreted them to me. There is much physiognomy in the backs of human heads, because—and here I flatter myself that I enunciate a profound truth—people wear that well-known mask, the human countenance, on the front of the human head alone, and think it necessary to provide ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... acknowledge Him to be immaterial, because a thousand absurdities, and such as imply the strongest contradiction, result from the supposition that the Supreme Being is a system of matter. But of any other spirits we neither have nor can have any knowledge: and no man will be inquisitive about spiritual physiognomy, nor go about to inquire, I believe, at this time, as Evodius inquired of St. Austin, whether our immaterial part, the soul, does not remain united, when it forsakes this gross terrestrial body, to some ethereal body more subtile and more fine; which was one of the Pythagorean and Platonic whimsies: ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... period when the people of Europe landed in the New World, their national characteristics were already completely formed; each of them had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had already attained that stage of civilisation at which men are led to study themselves, they have transmitted to us a faithful picture of their opinions, their manners, and their laws. The men of the sixteenth ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... in the public schools? Think, every time you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was born thousands of years before the oldest native American; and he may have something to communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a common language. Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key to which it behooves you ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... heart and beg them to let me sup in their company? I was afraid of the three devotees; I should meet with a refusal. I judged that my charmer's devotion was more a matter of form than any thing else, as her physiognomy declared her to be a lover of pleasure, and I had long been accustomed to read womens' characters by the play ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... with a decidedly foreign air. The man took off his mask, and M. H—— examined his features. His physiognomy was that of the south; his expression dark, and his long black hair hung over his face, and rested on his shoulders. The eyes of this man were sad and deep; and glittering beneath his dark brows, added to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... to perceive, niece,' said she, in allusion to somewhat that Emily had said, concerning physiognomy, 'that you have a great many of your father's prejudices, and among them those sudden predilections for people from their looks. I can perceive, that you imagine yourself to be violently in love with this young adventurer, after an acquaintance of only a few days. There was something, too, so ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... man of forty-five years, or thereabouts, with worn but regular features, bearing deep traces of excessive dissipation and the most absolute profligacy. His physiognomy offered a strange mixture of deceit and impertinence; and these disagreeable traits were still more emphasized by a dark heavy moustache, which shone with a lustre equaled only by the false ebony of his artistically curled hair. His ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... the year 1788, Mr. Johnson instituted the Analytical Review, in which Mary took a considerable share. She also translated Necker on the Importance of Religious Opinions; made an abridgment of Lavater's Physiognomy, from the French, which has never been published; and compressed Salzmann's Elements of Morality, a German production, into a publication in three volumes duodecimo. The translation of Salzmann produced a correspondence between Mary and the author; and he afterwards ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... its leash about one leg of its master—who was an alien from Wapping—and the spout of a zinc watering-can which a porter had left upon the platform; for which joke it had received a vile cuff on its wrinkled physiognomy from the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... all things, Flanders was considered nothing more than the general storehouse of Europe, until the day when the discovery of tobacco brought into one smoky outline the scattered features of its national physiognomy. Thenceforth, and notwithstanding the parcelling out of their territory, the Flemings became a people homogeneous through ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... something terrible in his air, something almost superhuman. The cowl, too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face increased its severe character and gave an effect to his large, melancholy eye which approached to horror ... his physiognomy ... bore the traces of many passions which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer animated. An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance, and his eyes were so piercing ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... some of them; others believe that the affair is neither more nor less than it appears to be. It's a thing that could be just what it is in no other country in the world. It's the phase that our civilization has contributed to the physiognomy of scandal, just as the exile of the defaulter is the phase we have contributed to the physiognomy of crime. Public opinion here isn't severe upon Mrs. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... few steps from the floor, sat the president of the society of United Irishmen. He alone was covered, and though plainly dressed, there was an air of high breeding and distinction about him; while in his bland smile were exhibited, the open physiognomy of pleasantness, and love-winning mildness, which still mark the descendants of the great Anglo-Norman Lords of the Pale, the Lords of Ormond, Orrery, and Arran, the Mount Garrets, and Kilkennys,—in former times, the great oligarchs ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various |
