NOSES AND CHARACTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2638, 27 September 1923, Page 4

NOSES AND CHARACTER.

Every feature in the human face contributes its share of the sum of the qualities possessed by 1 lie individual, and the nose gives many indications of character (says a contemporary). The Roman type of nose gives the most striking appearance, and typifies energy, decision, firmness, though often accompanied with absence of refinement. Among Englishmen we immediately think of the Duke of Wellington, John Wesley, and General Booth. Frederick the Great’s Roman nose was of such a prominent order that Lavater offered to wager his reputation that, blind-folded, he could tell it out of ten thousand other noses by simply taking it between his thumb and forefinger; and it was said of Lord Chatham, who was the proud possessor of a Roman nose, that when he met a Bishop he made so low a bow that the point of his nose appeared from between his knees. Good Queen Bess also, who reigned with sneli success in one of the.most glorious periods of our history, bore the Roman type of nose. The Greek nose, which is perfectly straight, and indicates refinement, love for the arts, but also astuteness and craft, amounting often to unstraightforwardness, is represented often by Petrarch, Spencer, Voltaire, Byron, and Shelley. Lord Tennyson’s combined Greek and .Roman traits, and with other wonderful features —dark, silky, finetextured hair; clear, white skin; dark, full eyes, high, broad forehead, long, full lips; provides a type of the highest order of our modem civilisation.

The cogitative or wide-nostrilled nose indicates great power of serious meditation and Luther, Bunyan, Shakespeare, Johnson, and, particularly Darwin, come into this category. ,

Wesley’s nose possessed both the characteristic of the lioinan and-

the cogitative type. When such a nose extends unduly in its perpendicular length, it indicates a tendency towards despondency and gloom. Thus Dante’s nose .and his upper lip formed an acute angle, the surest sign of a melancholy disposition. Fox, the martyologist, Knox, the terror of evildoers, Calvin, the austere theologian, all possessed noses of the Dante type. The Jewish, or hawk nose, is easily recognisable. It is the commercial or money-getting type par excellence, though this docs not necessarily- suggest any miserly attributes.

The snub, and turned-up or celestial" nose, betoken littleness of disposition, both Socrates and Rabelias possessing noses of (be former order, while Boswell, Dr. Johnson’s biographer, was both snub and celestial.