Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-06-24
THE CONTINUITY OF Personal
AppEARAE(E

thelr say. A jury OF JournalktS would nOw-&-
days be admitted 70 be an exceptionally good
one. and we DO not see why, in a civil suit, the
jury selected Should be rbiddeIfthe intellectual
advantage of reading their rivals opinions. How
ever, there is the rule, and the occasion is not
worth fight to break it, but We suppose we may
discuss a side point suggested by the trial-the
very curious proof it affords of the uncertainty
OF the popular mind about points of daily expe-
ne nce- Everybody engaged i'm the trial, ON both
sides: is clearly uncertain as TO the limits within
which a mans appearance may be expected to
change, limits which one would have thought
were as clearly fixed in the general mind
as the limits OF human height or longevity.
Anybody who says that he has grown or de-
creased IN stature after % must, OF course, pro-
Of romancing; and people outside of the medical
profession are incTedulous as 70 changes in the
color Of the eyes but, with these two exceptions,
We should have thought, till We read the EVIL
denee on this trial, that the POPULAR impression
Tan in favor of change The question is very
little discussed, because it is rarely Of much inn
rOrtance; but we should have said that, 50 far
from continuity OF appearance being the rule.
the appears nce Of most men and We men changed
exceedingly with the lapse Of time. All men
and women retain, no doubt, something Of
identity recognizable by all who have had occa-
sion To study their pecuiarities, or who have
been induced by affection or hatred-as in the
we1-knOwn case of Judge Jeffreyr-to engraye
them on their minds; but the points by which
most men recognize their friends are, we
should have thought, changeable tO any extent
The actual appearance may not change 30 much,
If viewed with the eye either of an artist or an
amateur, but the impression OF the appearance
certainly does. There is nothing, for instance,
about our friends that we remember more per-
sistently than 'build," the general effect of the
body, and nothing which alters 20 fast A vast
number of men, perhaps majority, never get
their real chests until they out OF their first
youth, but expand slowly for years in the region
over the lungs, till the tall lanky lad of eighteen
beco mes the powerful man of thirty. Whether
food at all influences this change, we do not
know, but exercise certainly does, and so does
dIiil-the weedy, tired-lOoking recruit, whom
the officer Is half inclined TO reject, swelling con-
stantly within few years into the broad-sh0uld-
cred, deep-hanked corporal, who looks such a
credit to his company. As rule, tall men
always widen in this way, and men with
excellent health, the lungs constantly de-
manding ard receiving fuller room for play
Most men, We imagine, who think about 1t can
point to half-a dozen relatives growing out OF
knowledge" in this way alone, the truth being,
that though the changeis by no means 50 great
as many others, il is a change in a point where
the INC moir, so often deceptive, usually holds
true. So with color, again. There is no point of
appearance which we all notice 80 clearly as
color, the very first impression made by any man
or woman being that of his belonging TO the dark
or TO the fair variety of mankind. Yet If color
cannot change, the impression of color most de-
cidedly can. Starvation, for instance, viii make
a fair man look for months like dark one, and
is, We more than halt inclined to suspect, the
ultimate cause of the color-difference among
races which so greatly perIlexes observers as
acute as Mr.. Darwin. The point can never be
tested; but tales of shipwreck, if carefully coli
lated, would, We are inclined 10 believe, reveal
seme such tendency in man to that particular
change. Tanning" on the other hand, pOpu-
larry believed to cause so extensive a change
In color, docs not exercise nsarly so
great an effect as is supposed. The first
effect of the sun or wind Is very great,
but it diminishes by degrees, and the sun I'm
particular alters individuals very little, and
races of men not at all, Anglo-Indians return
home after thirty years absence untanned, and
the whites" of Florida are no less changed by
hundred years endurance of the suns rays
than the people OF Massachusetts, are by hun
dred years of their dry Winds Fat, again,
alters color very much, tending, We think, al
most always to produce an impression of fair
ness. Very dark women who have grown fat
very often look quite fair, the stretched skin
showing the blood through il as unstretchedit
never did. In men this result is less certain,
some some men growing sallow as they widen, but in
perceived. Take a fine rosy publican, for ex-
ample, standing at the door of country inn.
You would rene mber him after short inspec-
ton as a man remarkably fair, while he was
perhaps at Is a remarkably dark, thin lad,
whose acquaintance, if they knew anything of
physiological Technology, would have classed
him without doubt among melanchthous men.
AS to other changes effected by fat, they are
endless. Outline, which We all RENE mber better
than anything except color, of course seems to
change; the gait is altered by the necessity OF
down-ln most men marked peculiarity-fs
modified by the same cause; the ewes look
appe arance of the whole figure Is very much
exaggerated. If anybody questions this, let him
compare the first photographs OF the Emperor of
the French with the one which the stereoscopic
&C mpany is now selling, or the portraits of the
Prince of Wales at % with the portraits of this
year. Those, of course, are moderate changes,
but in extreme cases the whole meaning OF the
figure, everything that we remember it by, may,
we suspect, be lost completely as il often is In
the interval between childhood and boyhood,
when, as We all know, the golden haired, curly
locked little pet Of two, as fat as dump
dark-wigged, sallow little STRIPPING OF TO-
Whether expression can change is rauch more
doubtful point Scarcely any one, We imagine,
has quite enough experience and memory 70 be
quite sure that change of expression he thinks
he sees is more that a mere fancy, but there is
no a prioTi reason why expression should be con-
tinuous- The science of physiognomy may be
TO be no science at all, man fire.
quently inheriting the faces OF their ancestors
without the mental qualities which were sup
posed te distinguish them; but still the mind
must exercise some influence over she face, and
the mind undoubtedly changes with changing
The absence or presence OF
anxety, adversely or prosperity will materially
things, will the acquiredhabit of command The
change from the face of Napoleon l., as given in
the admirable engraving inserted in the memoirs
Of the Duchess d'Abrantes, to the face, as
peror, does not consist only in feature
There is a change in expression also, in the en-
tire meaning OF his regard, which would, we be-
Ieve- have baffied even the artist who painted
the first portrait Education win, it is well
known, completely alter the expression of faces.
and so viii consistent drinking; but the most
constant and the most effective cause of ap-
parent alteration is, we believe, metaphysical
one, namely. a change not in the face regarded,
but in the mind regarding it. Expression is not
a fact so much as an idea about that fact and il
il perfectly possible for any man in all honesty
to attribute to any face Am expression which he
believes ohave been entirely fool
isllly erroneous. just hear a convinced Tory or
a strong Liberal describe the expression in Mr.
Gladstone's face during House of Commons
tournament, and you win hear evidence which
no jury could by any possibility reconcile with
the good faith by both the speakers.-Lon
Spectator,
TIE RUIN OF PARIS Is fearful to behold. IL
is difficult TO say where to take visitor to have
a view of the worst destruction. might take
him TO the front OF the Madeleine, to see how IL
Is battered with shot, how the houses in the Rue