Part 5

“That, surely, is the defect of its quality,” admitted Professor Maturin; “yet it did not cloud Kant’s thought, dim Milton’s poetic vision, or relax the will of Frederick the Great or of Bismarck. It may, perhaps, have somewhat clouded Lowell, dimmed Thackeray, and relaxed Lamb. But who can tell? We cannot determine the ideal combination of the strenuous and the contemplative life until we solve the personal equation.”

“Very true, very true,” acknowledged the Vicar; “therefore, let us begin again. Is not smoking an essentially selfish, or at least an anti-social, habit?”

“It does, I believe,” responded Professor Maturin, “incline one to prefer the company of other smokers, and to reduce the number even of those that one desires at a time. However, if that be the case, we must commend it for inciting such conversation as the present, such intimate games as chess, and such profitable solitude as that with books. It was no accidental combination that made Buckle say he never regretted the money spent for books or tobacco. King Alfred and his ancient candle are succeeded by the modern scholar, measuring time by the rings on the ash of his cigar, or by the succession of his pipes. Is not tobacco, therefore, an encourager of domesticity? What makes one more content to stay at home?”

“Or away from home?” smiled the clergyman, consulting his watch. “As for domesticity, you know the saying that ‘tobacco is woman’s only successful rival;’ and you recall those shocking lines of Kipling’s. I think I never knew a woman who was not, secretly, at least, distressed by the odor of tobacco--no matter what the younger ones may say to the contrary. Remember poor Mrs. Carlyle!”

“There were two Mrs. Carlyles,” chuckled Professor Maturin, “and you must restrict your sympathies to Jane, for the dowager and son Thomas used to smoke their pipes together. Of the feminine reaction to tobacco, however, I am no judge, although I do recall George Sand’s pipe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s snuff, and the cigarettes of contemporary empresses and suffragettes. Have I not heard that women physicians prescribe the latter--cigarettes, I mean--for feminine nervousness?”

“I have no doubt whatever about cigarettes,” replied the Vicar. “I would unhesitatingly banish them as the bane of the young and the foolish. Snuff, also, we are done with, and happily, for it was the most slovenly form of an indulgence which is unclean at its best.” Here the Vicar flicked some imaginary ashes from his waistcoat. “We can never be too grateful that our contemporary Sir Joshua Reynoldses are not snuffy. But I must confess that a good Havana now and then”--and the Vicar spoke slower and slower, until his sentence became an eloquent silence as he drew upon his cigar, expelled the smoke, and watched it fade away.

No one spoke for some moments, and as neither the Vicar nor Professor Maturin seemed inclined to do so, I ventured a brief panegyric upon pipes, preferably briars--their intimate, companionable, cumulative qualities; the preference for them on the part of Spenser and Tennyson, Locke and Fielding, Lamb and Lowell; and the varied range of their offering as illustrated by Cowper’s Virginia, Thackeray’s Canaster, and Aldrich’s Latakia.

“Nor may we forget Southey’s ‘Elegy on a Quid,’” added Professor Maturin. “Seriously, however,” he continued, “smoke is beautiful to the eye, pleasing in flavor and odor, smooth to the tactile and comforting to the temperature sense, the occasion of a tranquil muscular rhythm--the last not the least important. Thus it gratifies six senses at once--no wonder its use has become universal, intimately incorporated into national life east and west, south and north.”

“Alas, too intimately,” sighed the Vicar. “It costs half a billion a year. It is another artificial habit that the world finds it difficult if not impossible to do without. So few have Newton’s fear of adding to the number of their necessities. Think how Thackeray missed his cigar and how Prescott, when but one a day was allowed to him, ranged Paris over for the very largest procurable! Did not Stevenson write, ‘Most men eat occasionally, but what they really live on is tobacco’? Did not Charles Lamb say he toiled after tobacco as other men toiled after virtue? Was not his struggle to stop smoking as severe as De Quincey’s with Opium?”

“I suspect,” replied Professor Maturin, “that both Lamb and De Quincey made the literary most of their sufferings, and as for force of habit, who can tell? I am sure that I never smoke merely from habit, but always because of a conscious desire for the kind of satisfaction that smoking gives.”

“Yes, yes,” sighed the Vicar, finishing his cigar, “but I am truly distressed about the matter. I wish that your scientists would make a comprehensive and conclusive investigation into the effects of tobacco, as they have recently done into those of alcohol. Is it a stimulant or a sedative? What is its effect on perception, comprehension, association, combination, on general efficiency, on general health? Is it a poison or a panacea?”

“It is certainly time that we knew surely,” replied Professor Maturin gravely, “and it is our obligation to urge our scientific friends to inform us. Until then, however, I must confess that my own experience chiefly corroborates Carlyle’s judgment that ‘sedative, gently clarifying tobacco smoke, with the obligation to a minimum of speech, surely gives human intellect and insight the best chance they can have.’ The general situation is well summed up by old Burton, when he says: ‘Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher’s stones, ... but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ’tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned tobacco.’ Have another cigar, dominie.”

“Until we really know about tobacco,” concluded the Vicar, firmly closing the box, “we, at least, will practice moderation.”

IX

_Men’s Faces_

“Come in, come in,” said Professor Maturin, as I was shown to the door of his study. “I am very well, indeed, thank you--‘pursuing the even terror of my way,’ as the proofreader said. I have just been trying,” he continued, taking some papers from his writing-table, “to triangulate Shakespeare’s nose according to Sir Francis Galton’s plan for classifying profiles. But it appears that the shape of Shakespeare’s nose is as uncertain as the spelling of his name. Here in the Ely House portrait it is long and rounded, in the Droeshout it is rather flattened, in the Zoust quite irregular, in the Trinity Church monument a very vile nose indeed. You may observe, moreover, among these plates, a similar disagreement concerning every one of his features, although the general expression is like enough. All of which was renewing in my mind, as you came in, certain observations concerning men’s faces.

“If you were to go over with me my collection of literary portraits here,--I have about two thousand,--you would note immense differences in line and mass, light and shade, depth and delicacy. The prints are from all sorts and conditions of statues, paintings, engravings, and photographs; taken at all sorts of angles from profile to full face, and at various elevations. The actual color and texture of the originals, to say nothing of the artists’ ideas of them, would make the variation much greater. And yet I believe you will agree that, in spite of all detractions, almost every plate gives a surprisingly expressive and individual characterization.”

Professor Maturin waited in silence while I looked over enough of the portraits to convince myself of the justice of his observation. Then he continued: “While possessed of that idea I amused myself by picking out doubles. Here are some surprising similarities in the faces of most dissimilar persons--Tolstoy and Verlaine, Bishop Heber and Byron, Ronsard and Lincoln. All of these portraits of Spenser make him look like Mephistopheles, and Seneca here is the exact counterpart of our friend the sporting editor. In general, however, a resemblance in appearance--like that, for example, between Shakespeare and Calderon--represents a considerable correspondence in nature. Sometimes this may be attributed to identity of race and nationality, as in the cases of Renan and Sainte-Beuve, Taine and Zola. But most often the resemblance shows true to temperament and character in spite of race, time, and circumstance. Notice, for example, these prints of Horace and Herrick, Bürger and Burns, Heine and Chopin, Maurice Jokai and George W. Cable. Such resemblances hold even between very unusual faces, such as those of Uhland and Goldsmith, and there are sometimes triplets like Fouqué, Hoffmann and Poe. It appears, decidedly, that appearances are _not_ deceptive.

“Personality cannot, of course, entirely transcend all rules: Dumas père shows unequivocally his negroid blood; you can generalize concerning the bent Russian head, the arched Spanish brows, the full German nose, the common irregularity of English features. Accident broke Thackeray’s nose, cost Camoens an eye, and at least threatened De Foe’s ears. Distress left its mark on Cervantes and on Poe. Lamb said, you remember, that Coleridge looked like an archangel, a little damaged. Pope and De Quincey show their imperfect health. The posture and the pose of occupation leave traces, like the knitted brows of philosophers and men of action, the narrowed eyes of historians and explorers, the open nostril of the naturalist, the worn mouth of the orator. But these are minor matters--the general expression remains.

“The character of this general expression is perhaps most determined by the size and shape of the head. These vary enormously--as one may see in the Hutton collection of masks at Princeton--all the way from the greatness of Thackeray’s to the smallness of Byron’s, from the shortness and breadth of Luther’s to the narrowness and length of Lope de Vega’s, from Darwin’s deep sloping dome to Scott’s ‘Peveril of the Peak.’

“A single feature frequently dominates, like Sir Philip Sidney’s ‘imperial head with fair, large front,’ or Jean Paul Richter’s strangely bulging forehead. The eye is often the most striking feature. Scott said, literally, that the eyes of Burns glowed; the same thing was said about Keats and Hawthorne. Scientists are notable for eager eyes, mystics for dreamy ones. I have noticed that stylists, like Flaubert, Catulle Mendès, d’Annunzio, John La Farge, and Charles Eliot Norton, are heavy-lidded. Large noses connote power, if we may judge from the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans; from Dante and Savonarola, Wordsworth and Newman. We have the testimony of Lowell that Emerson’s nose was so large that it cast a shadow. Socrates and Plato, Herbert Spencer and Dr. Holmes, however, were but illy favored in this respect. Satirists’ noses are long, and, as we might expect, often pointed,--witness Erasmus, Swift, and Voltaire.

“Mouths are only less expressive than eyes. Sterne’s mouth shows him a satyr, De Quincey’s marks him an imp. In general the mouths of authors, and of clergymen, too often show self-importance or complacency. Julius Caesar’s square jaw and Bismarck’s thick neck are also full of meaning, although such features and the always significant poise of the head are often obscured by the countless forms of ruff, band, stock, or collar that men have affected from time to time.

“The hair and beard are even greater transformers. Personally, I like somewhat wayward hair such as Scott’s, Hazlitt’s, and Tennyson’s. All red-haired writers from Ben Jonson to Bulwer-Lytton attract me, while I am repelled by Byron’s glossy and Shelley’s silky hair. Many heads are improved by the thinning of their thatch, although Emerson’s was not; some, like Irving’s, are enhanced by a wig. But in general wigs are great levellers,--imagine Dr. Johnson in Addison’s! Alexander Hamilton’s queue makes a fine balance for his profile, and a tonsure is not always unbecoming. One may say the same for beards: Fitzgerald always objected to Tennyson’s, but Bryant and Longfellow and Ruskin were all bettered by theirs, the last immensely so. Freeman, however, rather overdid it, and Flaubert’s walrus moustache was a monstrous thing in such a stylist. Baudelaire’s beard and Swinburne’s are to me much more shocking than anything in their verses. But the doctrine of beards is really very subtle. Mr. Henry James’s removal of his apparently reacted upon his style.

“After conspicuous single features, arrangement most influences expression, and it is surprising to note how irregular this is. Such correlation and symmetry as that of George Meredith is quite exceptional. There are disagreements in color even between eyes--one of Lamb’s was hazel, the other gray. The eyes and brows of Chatterton, Balzac, and Douglas Jerrold are on a different plane, back of the rest of their features. The right side of Thoreau’s face and of Whitman’s is lower than the other, while the left side of Poe’s face is smaller. Disproportion in mass is most frequent, the lower half of the face being often too large for the remainder. Alexander von Humboldt and Matthew Arnold are the only examples I have noted of disproportionally large brows and eyes. The chins of Hegel, Gray, and Pater, on the other hand, are at least one size too large; the nose and mouth of Tyndall and Emerson are certainly two sizes too large; Hans Christian Andersen displays an even greater lack of harmony. Dr. Johnson combined a fine head and eyes with a coarse nose and mouth; Landor’s mouth was as weak as his head was powerful. Goldsmith presented the extraordinary combination of a low, bulging forehead, with almost no head behind the ears, handsome eyes and nose, a swollen upper lip, and a receding chin--all much pitted with smallpox. Goldsmith is a striking example, for in spite of his singularly unfortunate appearance, his intrinsic charm is yet obvious.

“Thus, while the details of men’s faces are a source of curious interest, their greatest significance is the way in which a general expression transpires through them. We are not in the least repelled by the ugliness of Aesop and Socrates, the ‘dumb-ox’ look of Thomas Aquinas, or what Edward Lear called ‘Wordsworth’s desire for milk appearance.’ When Petrarch appears cheerful and Montaigne sad, Smollett mournful and Spinoza merry, we yet feel that there is more than meets the eye. I believe, Tennyson to the contrary notwithstanding, that a man’s character is usually clear in his countenance; here I take up at random Confucius and Calvin, Cicero and Franklin, Rabelais and Chaucer--who could misjudge them? It is as Hazlitt said--you get from a great number of details a general impression which is true and well founded, although you may not be able to analyze or explain it.”

“It is certainly most interesting,” I said, as Professor Maturin put his portraits into their cabinet. “I wonder why the subject has not been investigated more fully and scientifically.”

“It has been thought about a good deal,” replied Professor Maturin, “ever since the Greeks. Renaissance rulers thought it of use in selecting their courtiers. Goethe kept a painter busy recording faces that interested him. About a century ago Lavater devoted a score of handsome folios, with splendid plates, to the study of faces, but his treatment was very desultory--discussions of ‘deep, designing, envious villains as represented by Raphael,’ and so on. Some of his successors went to the opposite extreme of definiteness, concluding that long noses denote courage, high cheek-bones honesty, large lips sociability, and the like. There have been, however, various scientific studies, such as Darwin’s on the expression of the emotions, Galton’s composite photography, and Bertillon’s accurate system of measurement and classification. Yet for some reason the subject still remains one of those that bibliographers catalogue as merely ‘curious.’ I like to dip into it now and then because of its general human interest, and always find it a stimulus to freshness and directness of observation; a caution, as Sir Joshua Reynolds said, against distrusting imagination and feeling in favor of ‘narrow, partial, confined, argumentative theories.’”

I remained silent while Professor Maturin looked over his cases for a book, and then stood leafing through it, until he found his place, and said: “Hazlitt sums the matter up in his essay ‘On the Knowledge of Character’ with these words: ‘There are various ways of getting at a knowledge of character--by looks, words, actions. The first of these, which seems the most superficial, is perhaps the safest, and least liable to deceive:... A man’s look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay more, by the hand of nature.... This sort of prima facie evidence shows what a man is, better than what he says or does.’”

X

_Mental Hygiene_

As the Vicar, the Physician, and I entered Professor Maturin’s study, after dinner, the Vicar sank into his chair with a deep sigh. “Is it so bad as that?” queried Professor Maturin, as he passed the cigars. “I beg a general pardon,” replied the Vicar. “To-day has quite tired me out, although I am just back from a vacation.” The Physician gazed at him professionally for a moment, and then said: “A clear case for the Book of Mental Hygiene.” As we turned, expectant, Professor Maturin, after some hesitation, took a portfolio from his desk, saying: “The Physician refers to a collection of memoranda, drawn from my experience and reading, during a series of years, but recently put into something like order. They are semi-personal in substance, and quite staccato in form, but I am very willing to read them if you will agree to stop me when you have had enough.” Accepting our assent, he began:

“Now that science can cause the Ethiopian to change his skin and the leopard his spots,--that is, can modify the color of rabbits and multiply the toes of guinea-pigs, or graft new characteristics on cattle or on grain,--it is high time to take thought for the efficient and economic working of that intellectual machinery which is not only the means to all such progress, but the fundamental condition of our mental being. Even if we do not accept Professor Lankester’s view that man has produced such a special state for himself that he must either acquire firmer hold of the conditions, or perish, we must agree with Professor James that the problem of access to different kinds of power is a practical issue of supreme importance.

“Physical conditions, of course, are the basis of all mental hygiene. Whatever may be the relation between body and mind, no one can doubt its intimacy. Many persons, like Wordsworth and Lowell, suffer physical prostration after mental exertion; nor does Dr. Johnson need to tell us that ‘ill-health makes every one a scoundrel.’ Habits of confinement or exercise mean so much that we might almost know from their work that Balzac and Poe wrote in closed rooms; but that Wordsworth and Browning composed in the open air, Burns and Scott on horseback, Swinburne while swimming. It is true that, as Roger Ascham said, ‘walking alone into the field hath no token of courage in it,’ and that the horsemanship commended by Erasmus is expensive; but there are countless forms of physical exercise, some suitable to each. George Sand set a standard of wisdom in increasing her exercise when under especial strain. Food and sleep also influence mental life tremendously. Whether we eat one simple meal a day with Kant, or many varied ones with Goethe, we must remember the laws of nutrition and Carlyle’s warning that indigestion comprises all of the ills of life.

“The criteria for sleep likewise are wholly individual so long as we do not drowse on other people’s hearth-rugs like De Quincey; or, like Rossetti, entertain our callers by taking naps. Some think it impossible to get too much sleep. Kant limited his for the sake of soundness; he, moreover, carefully tranquillized his mind before going to bed, not by a total exclusion of ideas but by a selection. Some forms of analysis and combination appear to continue during sleep. Gray had a friend who made verses in his dreams, and Bancroft’s bedtime problems were often solved when he awoke. The time to sleep and the time to wake must be left to individual instinct and social sanction. The doctrine of deliberate rising--dear to Lamb and Hazlitt, Thackeray and Lowell--has recently been reinforced by a French savant’s declaration that getting up quickly leads to madness.

“Again, mental life is so conditioned by sensations that every man should ask himself Professor Dowden’s list of questions concerning them. What did not Tennyson owe to his hearing, Keats to his taste and smell? Has anything ever affected human character more than the present eye-mindedness due to printing and artificial lighting? We have recently been shown the relation between thought and the jerks of the eye in reading, and even between pessimism and eye-strain. What might not be explained by nervous tension or arterial pressure, in Dr. Holmes’s ‘bulbous-headed men’ or Donizetti’s creative headaches. The very posture of the body is important in mental labor--many books are cramped from being bent over. Writers in bed have scientific endorsement for their approach to the horizontal. Yet, as this is hard on the eyes, a reclining-chair like Milton’s seems better. But no habit should be too rigid. It is unwise to risk Kant’s distress at the loss of the weather-vane he gazed at While pondering; and one doubts whether Schiller’s odor of rotten apples, or Gautier’s cat in his lap, or Marryat’s lion-skin table were worth the trouble.

“Accommodation must be practiced also with regard to youth and age. Whether through cellular differentiation or bacteria, age so profoundly affects the mind that books might almost be classified according to the productive ages of their authors.

“The influence of climate on mental life is beyond control, except as we may choose our place of residence and vary our occupation according to the season or the weather. Days vary according to the ebb and flow of the vitality stored at week-ends--Monday often wasting energy that is much missed by Friday. Deliberation and determination can do much to increase efficiency and well-being by employing one’s best times appropriately: prizing the cumulative value of unbroken hours,--of morning concentration, afternoon acquisition, and evening meditation. Those who cannot control the day must use the night--a French scientist even advocates a watch in the middle of the night. There are no rules of universal applicability, but study of the characteristics and circumstances of our best moments may make possible their easy and frequent duplication. That was Pater’s recipe for successful living.