Morning journal and courier., 1881-01-29
Curious If True.
Modideations OF the Human Face Caused
by Residence in Cities.

Modideations OF the Human Face Caused
by Residence I'm Cities.
[From the London Spectator
Among the things not readily defnable may
be classed the notifications which the human
countenance undergoes when subjected, for
any considerable length of time, to the infu-
ences of great city. What are these modi-
fications, and in what manner are they eff
fected That they exist no observant per-
son will deny. Cities, being as they are the
concentration of all that constitutes modern
civilization, and consequently of all that is
most opposed to primitive circumstances. of
life, cannot fail to produce the most marked
effect upon the expression of their inhabi-
tants. The influence of the country is to
create respect. The absence of racket and
hustle in woods and fields, the broad expanses
of hill and vale, the slow and orderly process
of the seasons, the breadth and tenderness
of the coloring, and the feeling that all that
surrounds has permanence and propriety,
compared with which the fussy empiricism
of mans works is as the cracking of thorns
beneath pot and as sparks that fly upward
all these things tend to impart
a quietude and inapprehensiveness
to the nerves and thoughts alto
gether in harmony with our environments.
We let our faces alone, so to say Our sensu-
GUS organization fuldlls its normal function
of reaching outward in quest of impressions.
It is never put upon it's defense-never COM
PEELED to transform itself from channel of
Communication with the outside world into a
buckler against such communication. 1t is
common observation that the countenances
of the inhabitants of country follow the
lines and general character of country they
inhabit. There is something of the prairie
in the wild visage of the Comanche Indian,
and something of the mountains in the rug
ged features of the Switzer. The earth we
stand on is our mother, and the spirit of her
forms is discernible in the ineaments of her
children.
But if this be true of the country, analogy
teaches us to expect corresponding though
contrasted result from the artificial influence
of cities. The modern significance of cities
is the coming together of multitudes of men
for the purpose of money-getting. Such
coming together involves confiict-an oppo-
sition of the interests of each individual to
the interests of all the rest. The consequence
is that every one arms himself against his
fellows. To be good business man is to be
not dishonest, indeed, for honesty is the
best policy-but capable of dissimulation, of
concealing ultimate designs, of habitually
maintaining a certain conventional demeanor,
the feeling underneath. Now, to do this is
to carry on two lives instead of one, and the
effects of that feat are soon perceptible in
the expression of the face; the refining in
the mouth makes burrows in the cheeks
where nature intended no burrows to be;
the 1nBcfuGaD11Ly OF bn6 eyes Is dbIulDe0 dk
the cost of wrinkles which are unknown to
the most venerable savage. certain rigidi-
ty gradually settles upon the features, and
the scope and variety of expression become
limited, because, the surface having become
accustomed to the contradiction rather than
to the declaration of what is within, and one
form of contradiction serving for many va
rieties of declaration, the range of the facial
naturally is circumscribed. Prob
ably the face of a London man would appear
torpid and expressionless to a be-
ing of franker and more spontaneous devel-
epment.
All this, however, is not of itself sufficient
to account for the formation of the city face
for there are country dissemblers as well as
city dissemblers and, on the other hand,
there are city men who are not given to dis
stimulation, but who, nevertheless, bear the
nnmistakable stamp of the city upon them.
In order to get at the root of the matter We
rs well as the metaphysical conditions
Of metropolitan life. The first impression
which a man has on finding himself for
she first time in a great city is of vague ex-
more or less accompanied by
sense of danger. The multiplicity of objects,
most of which appear fantastic to an eye ac-
to rural scenery; the confused and
anintermittent noises; the hurried and entan-
yled yet purposeful movements and above
Ill the innumerable and forever shifting pan
orama of unfamiliar human faces-combine
20 throw the visitor into state of mind to-
ALLY strange to him. And amid so much tu-
nultuous life he sees death everywhere on
The lookout for victim. Death waits at ev-
cry street crossing; death menaces the pas
sers-by from every chimney and scaffolding,
and death turks in the obscurity of each mar
row alley and darksome archway. But if the
visitor to these strange regions looks at the
faces of those he meets in search of some re-
lection of his own perturbation, he looks in
vain. The countenance of the city man, as
1e treads his way along the street, is curl
1usly impassive. At first glance it appears
.lso to be unobservant; but this it is not
For, although he seems to look at nothing,
t soon becomes evident that he sees every
hing. His thoughts are probably turned in
ward or are engaged with anything rather
,han what is going on around him. The
central glance of his eye, so to speak, is abb
stracted or preoccupied, but he mechan-
cally informs himself, out of the
hat might tend to instruct, hinder OF
threaten him; and though he passes through
! thousand people without encountering the
gaze or treading ON the toes of any of them,
ae viii inevitably recognize an acquaintance
on the other side of the street, or calculate to
an inch the rate of speed at which he must
make the crossing in order to escape the ON,
nibus from one direction and the hanson
from the other. Such composure in the midst
Of turmoil will strike the country visitor with
Doubtless, custom and mem
Dry will account for a large part of it; yet
the impassive face would probably appear far
less impassive than it does, had not the con-
fraction of the facial muscles, brought about
by tho constant assaults of innumerable i'm
pressions and the impossibility of responding
to them all, become, in manner, fixed. The
houses and the pavements, the vehicles and
the hubbub, produce an effect upon these
muscles Just the reverse of that exercised By
the hills and dales of the country. They
press them in, instead of drawing them out
In other words, the mind resists them instead
nf aymnathiZino with them