CHAPTER XXX.

THE NOSE, IN ITS PHYSICAL, MORAL, AND INTELLECTUAL ASPECTS.

F any one suppose that the nose has no legitimate place here,

IF

it may be sufficient to remind him that one peculiarity of the nose is its disposition to poke itself in where it has no business. But we maintain stoutly that it has a right to notice here, not only on account of its physical significance as an attribute of beauty or of ugliness, but on account also of its mental and moral significance.

A perfect nose is exceedingly rare. A propos of this demonstrable fact, we proceed to illustrate it by an anecdote of an occurrence affording much amusement at the time to those who knew personally or by hearsay of the dry humor and quaint ways of putting things occasionally indulged in by the late Dr. Franklin Bache, formerly professor of chemistry in Jefferson College, and one of the two original writers of the "United States Dispensatory." Meeting one day an artist of his acquaintance, in whom he took an interest, he feelingly discoursed to him on his own experience as to how exceedingly rare is a handsome nose, concluding by informing him that he happened to have at that moment a servant-girl who was thus rarely endowed, and inviting him in the interest of his studies to call and obtain a view of this very rare specimen of the organ. The Doctor had forgotten all about the incident, for a long time had elapsed without the appearance of the artist, when, one night after eleven o'clock, when the whole family had retired and the street was as silent as the grave, a tremendous peal sounded on the front-door bell, and the Doctor, putting his head out of the window, in anticipation of a summons to attend an urgent case, was greeted by a voice from the door-steps, saying, "Doctor,

I have come to take a look at your servant-girl's nose." Doubtless there was a mournful silence for a moment, for the Doctor was always deliberate, but always courteous, even in his nightclothes. Then his voice replied through the stilly night, "I much regret that you will have to call at some more opportune time, for my servant-girl's nose is in bed." Then there was a soft closing of the window, doubtless a mild anathema, and silence, broken only by the footfalls of the retreating artist, who never re-appeared.

The nose is associated in some mysterious way with character, apart from intellectuality. So close an observer as Dickens makes, in "Little Dorrit," the execrable Blandois, alias Rigaud, exhibit a peculiarly significant facial trait, of the nose coming down as the lip goes up, indicative of a secretive, treacherous, and sinister nature. It is always a bad sign of the nature when the smile is the worst expression of the face. Certain cants of the nose to the side, if they are not congenital malformations, or derived from accidents in parturition or in after-life, are as clearly indicative of obliquity of moral vision as is the nasal organ itself evidently set crooked on the face.

Rare, indeed, is it, if the exceptions are signal, as in the cases of Socrates, that intellect is coupled with a turned-up nose and spreading nostrils. Even the pretty nez retroussé (snub) of the French never stands for anything but a certain pertness and espièglerie of disposition, very remote from the order of mental endowment of womankind graced with vivacious wit, free from malice and the kittenish calibre of their less favored sisters..

Rare, indeed, is it to find a pugilist who has any other type of nose than one of a class as well defined with reference to its associations as is the bull-dog's with reference to its breed. Noses of a very different sort indicate fighters of a very different from the pugilistic stamp. Just as it was remarked, in connec

tion with the case of Socrates, that it is rare to find high intellectual qualities conjoined with a broad, upturned nose, so equally it holds true of the conjunction of high moral qualities with such a feature. Socrates was, therefore, an exception to both rules, that the large, well-developed nose is indicative of intellect and refinement. Intellectual men are generally characterized by very large noses, and especially is this manifest in the case of great statesmen, generals, and conquerors. Of course we must make allowance for ethnic differences, the differences by which races are characterized, and not demand as large a nose of Attila, the Hun, as of some conqueror of another race.

But wholly apart from the quality of mind that makes conquerors, great generals, or statesmen, it will be found that men of marked distinction of mind in all walks of life are characterized by larger and more distinctively accentuated noses than are possessed by men of average ability, and of course the same thing holds good of women. Doubtless Michel Angelo's nose was a very good specimen of the artist type of nose, when it was in early life broken by the mallet of a fellow-student of sculpture.

The characteristics of distinguished generals as to the form and size of the nose is pretty generally recognized, even before the powers of observation have had much scope for exercise, or much information has been derived from reading, as we can judge from an anecdote of General Meade, told of him by some of his classmates at the Military Academy at West Point. It seems that the cadets of his class were fond of joking him about his large nose, and that he, who had a great fund of quiet humor, used to reply to their fire of witticisms by tapping his nose on one side and saying, "Great soldier, great soldier!" Much evidence has reached us through life, going to show that there is a very general appreciation of the fact of this trait of a large nose generally meaning intellectual superiority, and certain

forms of it a military bent of superiority, and also that there is a very general appreciation of the fact that the opposite extreme, the small, snub variety of nose, is indicative of mental inferiority, often conjoined with comic disposition and alimentary and bibulous propensities. But all the existing intermediate varieties of nose, as indicative of mind and temperament, are very far, indeed, from being recognized in their full significance, and most persons who would claim profound insight into a person by looking into the eye would never think for a moment of consulting the nose as any index to mind and character, and yet the nose is there much more helplessly than the eye to testify as to the worth or worthlessness of its possessor.

The nose is sometimes the seat of the most violent inflammations. Inebriety sometimes leaves its mark there in the manner in which Bardolph was afflicted. The disease of rosacea, in the form of rhinophyma, which was what Bardolph had, has other sources besides those of excessive drinking, that are not popularly known, and hence one innocently a sufferer is sincerely to be pitied as having to bear not only the disease, but the most unjust conclusions regarding its cause.

Lupus, popularly termed cancer, but not regarded by physicians as true cancer, sometimes attacks and rapidly destroys the nose, being, in respect of its capacity to destroy the tissues, like cancer, thus leading naturally to the popular designation of it. Sometimes from a small centre of irritation, as, for instance, a broken and unkindly-healed mole, which has been subjected to fierce alternations of heat and cold (the causes are numerous that are capable of setting up inflammation in such a place), there arises a morbid affection known as epithelioma. These cases seem extremely trifling at first, hardly worthy of notice, but, like the spark that is capable of causing the great conflagration, they do not bear letting alone. The electric needle at once extirpates such growths in their incipient stages. We

have known of the case of such an excrescence that had been successively treated by perforation with red-hot needles, when it grew again, and then by excision with curved scissors, which cut it out nearly to the bone, when it grew again; but we have never known of a case in which the electric needle has been used for extirpating one when it has returned.

There is nothing to be said here as to the toilet of the nose, save that it should be performed in private with the handkerchief, as that of the other exterior organs of the body may be with the wash-rag. We are sorry to say that in our public conveyances sanitary rules are not sufficiently adopted and enforced by the companies. Picking the nose is outrageously frequent. Only smoking is prohibited, and the rule against it enforced. But spitting is far worse, because some spit holds the germs of the bacillus of consumption, which may, in the form of dust, eventually find its way into a favorable soil in lungs predisposed to consumption, and this practice is not forbidden by the companies, although it is most prevalent in the cars among some classes of men, and although it is well known that consumption is contagious. The companies should also prohibit the unsanitary practices of cleaning the nails and picking the teeth in public conveyances, where they are to be constantly seen. These practices are doubly coarse, for refinement is nothing if not considerate of others, and nothing if not self-respectful enough to keep for privacy the offices of cleansing the person.*

* Singular to relate, it so happens that since these lines were written, last winter, and before they can be printed, notices have been everywhere posted in the cars about Philadelphia, forbidding spitting in them. We, however, let them stand in their entirety, as possibly useful instruction for the country at large, in which the habit of spitting in public places has always been very prevalent. We have seen roughs, immediately upon seating themselves in a car, whip out plugs of tobacco and help themselves to chews therefrom, with the air of having reached a place specially devoted to chewing. But, bad as this tobacco-chewing and spitting has been, it is as nothing compared with the filthiness and danger of expectoration upon the floor of the cars of phlegm hawked from the deepest recesses of the throat, heretofore constantly practiced in cars, in total disregard of cleanliness, and to the nauseation of ladies and gentlemen.