Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1875-06-25
NOSES.

l II yOuIlS SCllUlCllttll VI In III ClilOui WI
had wooed and won, and wanted to wet
the fair daughter of a wealthy burghe
deemed it advisable to pop the question
papa, by proxy, and found mutual frien
willing to act fop him. Knowing tn
lovers circumstances, that shrewd indivi
dual said. ere he went on his mission, g
will give you twenty thousand dollars TO
your nose, it you will allow me to cut i
off!'' ''Not for the world!'' was the reply
AS the go-between anticipated, the lady's
father raised no objection to her sutton
but simply inquired as to his means
"Wel1," said the willy ambassador, che has
not any landed property nor much money
at his command, but he possesses a jewel,
for which, to my certain knowledge, he
has refused twenty thousand dollars" AS
Iunsuspicious as an M. p. ambitious of a
/ profitable dictatorship. the old gentleman
closed with the offer of the oily tongued
promoter of matrimony, and found him.
self saddled with a son-in-law whose nose
was his only fortune.
Artists generally hold, with Sir Joshua
Rey nolds, that the Grecian is the only per-
feet nose, the straight ridged form being
more beautiful than the concave, convex,
or any other irregular shape. The author
of IN ,9tes on Noses,'' on the contrary,
awards precedence to the aquiline. royal,
OF Rom;an nose, as being a sure Indication
of an energetic, resolute, ruling mind; and
cites, in proof, the noses of Julius Caesar,
Canute, Charles the Fifth, Edward the
First, Robert Bruce, Wallace, Columbus,
Pizarro, Drake, William the Third, Condo,
Loyola, Elizabeth of England, Washing
ton and Wellington.
He tells us that astuteness and craft,
refinement of character, and love of art
and literature, are the characteristics Of
Grecian-nosed folks; but we are not aware
that Milton, Petrarch, Spenser, Boccaccio,
Raffaelle, Claude, Rubens, Titan, Murillo,
Canova, Addison, Shelley, Erasmus, Vol
taire and Byron were remarkable for crafti-
ness, however truly set down as lovers of
literature and art.
Certainly it would be unsafe always to
Judge man by his nose. Suvaroff, for in i.
stance, hardly comes in the category of
weak minded men, although he wore as
veritable q snub as James the First, Rich
ard, Cromwell and Kosciusko.
Napoleon had a prejudice for long-nosed
men, on the ground that their breathing
was bold and free, and their brain, lungs
and heart, in consequence, cool and clear.
Isut there are disadvantages attached to
ain over allowance of nose. Probably Will
sen, the painter, did not feel grateful to
N. allure, when street boys saluted him as
N1,sey: and the Greek who could not hear
his own sneeze, and the Roman who was
asked to place his nose opposite the sun,
and open his mouth to expose his tremen-
dous teeth, that he might serve passers-by
for a sun dial, would both have gladly,
had it. been possible, shorn the obstructive
organs of their unfair proportions. Such
well provided gentlemen as these would
have been qualified for the membership of
the Ugly Club, one of the rules of that
society running, eff the quantity of any
mans nose be eminently miscalculated,
whether as to the length OF breadth, he
shall have a just pretense to beselected."
Men feel toward their noses much as
Verbruggin, the actor, did toward his
pretty wife, for whom he cared nothing,
although prompt to resent any affront Of
fered her. An insult to his nose, conse-
sequent upon his telling his prin cely mas
ter to pull off his boots for him, drove De
Confines from Burgunday to France, to
revenge the unforgotten injury years after
ward by pillorying his first patron in his
memoirs. Many man has had the salts
faction of being shot for pulling another's
nose, OF for having his own served the
same way, that being at one time, and not
so very long ago, the approved manner of
Insulting man.
The nose can boast one provocative en-.
tirely it's own-that of being blessing
upon it's owners head. How it comes by
this honorable distinction is a mystery,
none the easier of solution by reason OF
the custom of blessing q sneezer being
pretty well universal. According to one
tradition, the practice arose in the ponti-
ficate of Gregory the Great, when Rome
was scourged by plague peculiar for in
slant death, following upon a sneeze,
whereof it grew into a custom that they
who were present when any man sneezed
should say, God bless you'll"