Notes on Noses (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852 edition. Excerpt: ... Calvin, George Herbert, Edmund Spenser, and Dante, are illustrations of the melancholy Nose. CHAPTER II. OF THE BOMAN NOSE. Class I.--The Roman, or Aquiline Nose, is rather convex, but undulating, as its name aquiline imports. It is usually rugose and coarse; but when otherwise it approaches the Greek Nose, and the character is materially altered. It indicates great Decision, considerable Energy, Firmness, Absence of refinement, and Disregard for the biemeances of life. Numerous portraits, both in marble and on coins, demonstrate that this Nose was very frequent among the Romans, and peculiarly characteristic of that nation. Hence its name. The persevering energy, stern determination, and unflinching firmness of the conquerors of the world; their rough, unrefined character, which, notwithstanding the example of Greece, never acquired the polish of that country, all indicate the accuracy of the mental habit attributed to the owner of this Nose. Sufficient stress has never been laid by historians on national characteristics. The peculiar psychonomy of nations is an element which is never taken into account, when the historical critic endeavours to elucidate the causes and consequences of events. He judges of all nations by the standard of his own, regardless of age, climate, physiognomy, and psychonomy. This is as absurd as the fashion the Greeks had of deducing foreign names and titles from the Greek, a practice which Cicero wittily ridicules. In this ridicule we willingly join; yet we are equally open to it, when we interpret the actions of foreign nations by our own national standard. It was the psychonomic difference between the Romans and the Greeks, which prevented the former from benefiting so efficiently from the lessons in art and...