Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1891-06-27
PRICE ONE CENT
responsibility for Our Looks.

The question of how far the mind forms
the face is always an interesting one and
not soon TO be settled. According to a
newspaper story now in circulation.
ellknown United States Senator decided
it ~off hand, in the case of a witness be-
fore an investigating committee. The
witness in question was SO forbidding in
countenance that il was said his looks
ought TO hang him.. This ELECTED the
usual defense in such cases-that a man
is not responsible for his looks--to which
the Senator replied; But man Of so
years is responsible for his looks" Ia
series Of articles appearing in the Chap.
erone magazine w. ii. Little takes some
what the same view. The face 30 him is
a soul picture, where the mind ex-
presses itself in permanent lines. The
idea is highly poetical, and Hood has ex-
pressed it in his beautiful fragment, THE
Sea of Death"
And there were neighbor brows, Scared by the
brunt
OF strife and sorrowing. where Care had set
His crooked autograph aud marred the let
OF glossy locks; with hollow eyes forlorn
And lips that curled in bitterness and scorn,
AS though they breathed OF this world = pain.
And 80 bequeathed it to the world again.
While the poetical imagination far out
strips exact science, itnearly always leads
the way in science. In illustrating his
own theories of the effect of the mind on
the face, Mr. Little incidentally illus
trates this by choosing the face OF Morse,
the inventor of the telegraph. as a study.
Morse invented the telegraph because he
was poet and painter; because he had
trained his imagination so highly that
when he put aside pen and brush as
means of expression he was capable ofex-
pressing thought in the greatest inven-
ton of any age. For the poetic imagina-
ton all questions of the influence of the
mind on the face are settled. To poetical
insight the face is the reflex Of the mind
ON which care and passion leave their
crooked autograph, so that in this
view "a man of so is responsible
for his looks. But in the poetical
mind, as in the common mind, the idea
of the good and the beautiful" are
SO closely associated that much of
the value of poetical insight is here lost
for science. 1t is true in general but not
always in particular, that essential good
ness manifests itself physically in the
beautiful and pleasing, yet our common
sense takes that for granted as invariably
true. In our pictures the angels are
made as beautiful as possible, while the
idea of evil is expressed in deformity and
ugliness. In Durer's extraordinarily
ugly devils and in Raphaels ideally
beautifully cherubs, the poetic imagi-
nation has expressed an idea in which
the common sense of the civilized world
has concurred for generation after gem
eration-in which il still concus. But
though poetry and common sense agree
here as they do not always, they fall
short of science. They leave uncon-
sidered too many conditions. Science
may grant that a pure life of either
positive goodness or negative innocency
will result in a face expressive of these
mental characteristics, and, moreover,
that such face will always express the
beautiful or the pleasing. But this with
a proviso that such life must be un-
troubled and comfortable. Self sacri-
flee, the struggle for mastery of pas
sion, the self devotion of men who take
on themselves the trouble of others, will
leave on the face lines of ugliness under
the same law which makes callosities on
the hand of the laborer. Poverty. de-
privation, hardship, whether endured
voluntarily or involuntarily leave their
marks on the face in lines which, If not
repulsive, are at least ugly. Remove
such conditions substitute for them con-
ditions of positive comfort, and the face
changes accordingly to closer approx.
nation TO the beautiful-if not in one
generation, then in the next. This is
constantly observable in European immi-
grants TO this country and in their chill
dren. 1t is never to be forgotten by sci
ence, though poetry must forget it, that
the stomach has az much influence on
the face as the soul. If the face is soul
picture it is also stomach picture. One of
the most cherubic countenances that a
man ever possessed is that of a pro-
fessional American politician with
national reputation as the most unscru-
pulous of an unscrupulous class. Every
line of it speaks of mind at peace, OF
good will 10 men, of all angelic qualities.
It's owner may have no conscience at all
certainly not enough to interfere with
stomach that is perfect in its operations.
Observing such phenomena as this, the
wise ancients made the stomach the seat
of the soul No matter where we locate
it. it is always TO be remembered that in
attempting to read the soul in the face
we may be reading only the stomach.--
St. Louis Republic.