Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/527



HERE is a type of human organization the representatives of which have very little peace in this world, and who, when they have the power to act in accordance with their ever-changing impulses, allow still less to those who surround them. In these people the complexion is usually pale; the features are thin and sharp; the lips lack that moderate fullness which tends so much to give beauty to the mouth; the eyes are small, bright, and in almost constant motion; the heart beats rapidly, but with little force; the respiration is frequent, but not deep; the chest is well-formed, but not large; the skin dry and rough; the hands and feet are small and well-shaped, and the digestive system weak and easily disturbed.

In their movements they are rapid and vivacious, but as the muscular system is not fully developed in persons thus constituted, fatigue is induced after very little bodily exertion.

Such are the chief physical characteristics of those so unfortunate as to have been born with the nervous temperament. When it is acquired, as it may be, these characteristics are not so strongly marked, and some of them may be entirely absent.

Examining their mental faculties, we find many peculiar features. Their intellectual operations are rapid and brilliant; but, at the same time, not often deep or persistent. Such a thing as slow, patient, and thorough study or research is uncongenial. Their powers of application are, therefore, feeble; but as their perceptive faculties are strong, their minds in a high degree impressionable, and their modes of expression fearless and incisive, they have not infrequently played important parts in the world's history. But they must have variety. Their mental, like their physical efforts are, as it were, spasmodic; full of energy while they continue, but soon yielding to others different in character.

Voltaire and Frederick the Great, of Prussia, are notable examples of the nervous temperament, and John Randolph of Roanoke affords the most remarkable instance of it among distinguished Americans.

The nervous temperament is the creation of civilization. Barbarous nations afford no examples of it. In the early days of Rome, when the people were simple in their habits, accustomed to war and hardships, and not prone to excessive intellectual labor, this type of constitution was unknown. But the Augustan age and the depraved eras that ensued, contributed largely to the development of the nervous temperament; and the Roman men and women, once so celebrated for their philosophical impassibility, became sensitive, effervescent, and subject to numerous diseases of the brain and nerves previously rare among them.