Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/648

632 and which makes their pulses throb and their flesh "creep," were but the sham excitement of dreamland. As a rule, the same may be said of the ecstatic feelings which accompany devotional exercises. I do not allude to public prayers from the pulpit—where an earthly audience has to be borne in mind—but to the silent communings of private worship, when the soul feels that it has entered the holy of holies, and stands naked before the Eternal Powers.

If it were possible to set apart certain individuals in whom all emotional impulses reacted upon the features via the sympathetic, to the exclusion of the motor nerves, we should expect to find among them many strong points of resemblance in facial expression. Although, happily, no such creatures exist among healthy human beings, it is by no means difficult to indicate whole classes of people whose pursuits, or mental habits, give the sympathetic system a preponderating influence.

Professional musicians, priests, and sensualists, all, as a rule, bear distinct certificates on their countenances that they belong to such a category.

But before we are in a position to discuss the special points of resemblance among these very distinct classes, it will be necessary to clear the ground of certain stumbling blocks.

Since the facial changes in question are brought about by means of the machinery of nutrition, it must be taken for granted that this machinery is in good working order in every case, and that it is reasonably well supplied with raw material in the shape of victuals and drink. If one of our subjects should chance to be an ascetic or a dyspeptic, it is plain that all trophic processes, whether direct or indirect, will be so profoundly affected that it would be unfair to compare him with people who live well and have sound stomachs. Again, the possession of an exceptionally alert intellect would vitiate results in any individual, since this tends, as is well known, to develop a distinct type of face. The candidate for sympathetic facial marks must also maintain an aloofness from the turmoil and traffic of the world about him; although it does not much matter whether the wall which shuts him off from his fellows consists of substantial bricks and mortar, or of professional enthusiasm, or of mere selfishness.

It will be well, for the present, to confine our attention to subjects of the male sex who are past their first youth, since women and young people exhibit but few conspicuous traces of emotional influence upon facial nutrition as compared with men of mature age. Probably the reason of this difference is found in the fact that both women and youths are normally more under the sway of the feelings than are men, and therefore special