The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-06-27
CLASSIFYING MEN.

The lasting regret that we cannot
know more of the bright, sincere and
genuine people of the world is increased
| by the fact that they are all different
from each other. Was it not Madame de
Sevigne who said she had loved several
different womenfor several different quail
tiles Every real person-for there are
persons as there are fruits that have no
distinguishing favor,mere gooseberries-
has a distinct quality, and the finding it
is always like the discovery Of new is
land to the voyager. The physical world
we shall exhaust some day, having writ
ten description of every foot of it to
which we can turn but we shall never
get the different qualities of people into
biographical dictionary, and the making
acquaintance with human being will
never cease to be an exciting experiment.
We cannot even classify men so az to aid
us much in our estimate of them. The
efforts in this direction are ingenious but
unsatisfactory. IF | hear that man is
Emphatic or nervous -sanguine, | cannot
tell therefrOm whether [ shall like. and
trust him. He may produce phrenolog-
ical chart showing that his knobby head
is the home of all the virtues, and that
the vicious tendencies are represented by
holes in his Uranium, and yet | cannot be
sure that he will not be as disagreeable
as if phrenology had not been invent.
ed.
[ feel sometime that phrenology is the
refuge of mediocrity. Its charts are al
most as misleading concerning character
as photographs. And photography may
be described as the art which enables
common place mediocrity to look like
genius. The heavy7jowled man with
shallow cerebrum has only to incline his
head So that the lying instrument can Sc
lect a favorable locus, to apper in the
picture with the brow of sage and the
chin of a poet Of all the arts for
ministefing to human vanity the photo
graphic Is the most useful, but 1t is a
poor aid in the revelation of character.
You shall learn more of a mans real ma
ture by seeing him walk once up the
broad aisle of his church to his pew on
Sunday, than by studying his photograph
for month.
No, we do not get any certain stand
ard Of men by chart of their tempera-
ments it will hardly answer to select a
wife by the color of her hair-though it
be by nature as red as cardinals hat,
she may be no more constant than If 1t
were dyed. The farmer who shuns al.
the Emphatic beauties IN his neighbor-
hood and selects to wife the most neI
vous- sanguine, may find that she is un-
willing to get up in the winter mornings
and make the kitchen fire.
Many a man, even in this scientific age
which processes to label US all, has been
cruelty deceived in this way. Neither
the blondes nor the brunettes act accord
ing to the advertisement of their tenn
peraments. The truth is that men refuse
to come under the classifcatiOrS of the
pseudoscientists, and all our new nomen
clatures do not add much to our knoWl- |
edge. You know what to expect-it the
comparison will be pardOned-0f a horse
wi n certain points but you Wouldn't !
dare go on journey with a man merely /
upon the strength of knowing that his
temperament was the proper mixture of
the sarguine and the phlegmatic. Sci |
ence is not able to teach US concerning
men as it teaches us of horses, though |
am very far from saying that there are
that run through families that can be
calculated to appear in individuals with
absolute certainty one family will be |
trusty and another tricky all through its
members for generations; noble strains
ard ignoble strains are perpetuated |
When we hear that she has elOped with
the stable boy and married him, we are
apt to remark-"Well,s she was a Bogard |
u.s." And when we read that she has
gone on mission and has died, distin-
gushing herself by some extraordinary
devotion to the heather at Ujji, we think
it sufi cient to say, Eyes, her mother mar
ried into the Smiths" But this kn0wl- |
edge comes of our experience Of special
families, and stands Us in stead no furth~
er.-Scrabne,'s Monthly.