The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-05-08
THE HUMAN NASAL ORGAN.
VIEWS OF A SURGEON CONCERNING
THE NOSE.
PccuIinrities of the Leading Facial
Feature i'm Different feopIc-The
Noses of Prominent People.

Pcculinrities of the Lending Facial
Feature i'm Different EcopIc-The
Noses of Prominent People.
"Consider the nose" said the eminent
surgeon to a Chicago Herald representa-
tive, 'not as you do the lily of the field
how it grows or how it blows-but as
an organ of character. Have you ever
considered the nosel" The reporter was
obliged to confess that he had never
turned his thoughts to any great extent
in that direction, but. would be pleased
to hear the reflections of one who had.
"Well, sir" continued the surgeon, 'if
you look in the face for the strongest,
brightest and most perfect expression of
character, even in the face of an animal,
you will find it in the nose. Dc not look
astonished. The nose is the central fea-
ture and a face would not be a face with
out it. A man may lose any other fea-
ture and yet pass muster, but a man
without a nose-horrible! Hence the
nose is the most important feature and
stands to reason that the most important
feature must show forth the character
most significantly. Noses mark the
peculiarities of races the world over.
The lower races, like the negroes,
E~squimaux, etc., have broad, fiat
noses and their mental and moral
characteristics are low. The
Caucasian has a prominent and well de-
fined nose, and he leads in subduing the
world. The Chinese have bad noses,
and they are intellectually a superior
race, but they are not really a proper ex-
ception, for they flatten the noses OF
their children in infancy. They have
cultivated small and fiat noses for gem
erations, upon some absurd notion that
the eyes are the most important and
should not be obscured by the nose.
You can also see how the nose marks
some of the gradations of society around
you. Look at the concave faces of the
low and ignorant, those whom YOU are
sure to find of mornings in the police
courts, or who adorn the cells of our
prisons. You cannot for a moment as
sociate beauty, valor, genius or intellec-
tual power with such noses.
"Of course, among the refined and
educated there are noses and noses.
Education and proper early training may
do much even for q nose. Socrates had
a snub, a vile snub, but he was frank
enough to admit that in his heart he
was a very bad man. Training did
much for him. as it does for everybody,
but a man who enters life with a snub
is seriously handicapped. Can you won
der that the learned Mr.. Shandy ex-
pressed his grief so forcibly when
he learned that his son had lost
his nose at the very threshold of life? If
you study the portraits of great men you
will be struck by the character of their
noses. The world compcllers have all
had good noses. Napoleon's nose was
well shaped but large, neither Roman
nor Grecian, but a compound of the two.
Alexander the Great had the same kind
of a nose, and so had Frederick the
Great, Richelieu and Cardinal Wolsey.
Look at the portrait of Washington. All
that is great in tirmness, patience and
heroism is stamped upon his nose, which
is the true aquiline. Wellington's nose
WAS OF the same type, and so was Julius
Caesars, and each possessed the same
characteristics of patient courage and
heroic frmness that belonged to Wash.
ington. The wide nostrilled nose be-
tokens strong powers of thought and
love for serious meditation, and these
you see in the portraits of Bacon, Shaks-
peare, Franklin and DR.. johnson and in
others of our great students and writer's.
The poets generally have beautiful
noses Of the Grecian type, as you may
see in the pictures of Bacon, Shelley,
Milton, Petrarch, Voltaire, Schiller,
Robert Burns and Edgar Poe.
All our presidents, from Washington
to Arthur, have had good and well
shaped noses.
1t was Pascal who said that if the nose
of Cleopatra had been shorter the whole
world would have been changed. Antony
would never have fallen in love with a
snub-nosed woman. Cupid has generally
ignored the existence of the feminine
nose. He compliments her brow, her
eyes. her checks, and even her ears, but
her nose never, or hardly ever. l be-
lieve there are some lines that commence
with:
"'Tis very odd that poets should suppose
There is not poetry about a nose.
When plain rs is the nose upon your face,
A ~noseless face would lack poetic grace.
Noses ave sympathy a lover knows
Noses are always touched when lips are
kissing.
And who would care to kiss where nose
were missing'
"And the poet concludes:
al knew a nose, a nose no other knows,
Meath starry eyes, DER ruby lips itgrowS;
Beauty is in its form and music in its
blows.
"Alfred Crowquill has also some lines
addressed to his nose which are not so
bad:
"Knows he who never took a pinch,
Nosey, the pleasures thence which flows
Knows he the titillating joy
That my nose knowsl
ooh, nose, l am as proud Of thee
AS any mountain of its SHOWS;
gaze on thee and feel that pride
a Roman knows.
"Not much other poetry on the nose,
for it is an organ that needs none to
make it prominent, but there are a num-
Der of proverbial sayings which relate to
it, to be as happy as a dog who has
broken his nose is manifestly of a satiri-
cal meaning, while TO stick ones nose