LITERARY NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2292, 19 March 1887, Page 2

LITERARY NOTES.

[FROM.OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Paris, January 29. Had Cleopatra's nose been a little shorter, the face of the world, Pascal maintained, would have been changed. According to Major Schack, of Denmark, the shape of the nose not only serves to characterise races, but nations. They eyes have been accepted as the windows of the soul, but the nose is claimed as the indicator of the intellectual faculties. The Major has travelled in many lands and studied many peoples—and also animals. He concludes, that in both, the physiognomical expression, is the tell-tale of character. His work, translated into French by Dr. •Turnout, is extremely curious. Taking into account the study of the neck, the hair, the hand, and of course the mouth and eyes, Major Schack, attributes also an immense indicating value—moral and physical —to the shape of the nose.

Following the author, the dimension of the nose is in proportion to the development of the lungs and chest. It is thus, that sculptors of antiquity gave large nostrils to those of their statues, which expressed strength and courage, because exercise in fortifying respiration distends the nostrils. However, anger and fright produce the same effect. The largeness of the nasal cavities, impart volume to the voice. That is to say, a splendid voice and a small nose rarely co-exist. Further, the nose makes known the intensity of intellectual activity, and the delicate fineness of our moral sentiments. The nose belongs at once to the unchangeable and the variable parts of our features ; while faithfully reflecting the transitory movements of our inclinations. Diplomats then ought to distrust their noses.

In the case of the infant the nose is the most insignificant and least developed part of the visage. It is only at the age of puberty that its development becomes marked. That organ when well developed, indicates firmness, self-control, reflection and depth of character. Th 3 form of the nose depends also on civilisation. Its elegance is the apanage of peoples arrived at a high degree of culture. Savages present a rough, unslmpen nose—an organ approaching more the muzzle of animals than a human nose. The Roman nose represents strength and reason; the Greek nose, artistic genius and taste. Virgil, although a Roman citizen, had tl'io Greek nose. Milton, Reubens, Titian, Madame de Staol, Richelieu and Napoleon had the Greco-Roman nose. When a nose is, as Tennyson says, "upturned like the petal of a rose," such indicates cunning and artfulness, and is peculiar to waiting maids and intriguing ladies. The straight nose is the sign of taste and refined judgement ; a Bourbon nose, of self-opinion and rectitude; a thick, shapeless nose, of heaviness and want of tact. These rules may steady many persons poking their noses— especially where not wanted. Any reliable work on Germany at the present moment is deserving of attention,

A gentleman, who is a Belgian, and whose mother was a German, and his father of French extraction, publishes "Berlin in 1876 and 1886." The comparison between then and now is fairly impartial, and not hostile or unkind to the French. The writer, during the decade, has been in constant communication with his German and French relatives.

The French indemnity of five milliard francs, turned all heads. Many believed such a windfall would result in houses being that ched with pancakes and streets paved with penny loaves, and that work would be limited to quaffing beer in celebration of triumphant Vaterland. On the contrary, the stream of Pactolus nearly ruined, as speculators and promoters seized upon it. But the Germans quickly shook themselves out of the day-dream, and recognised that those who produce and work, are they who gain. • j-lence the unexampled "boom" of mdusffial and commercial activity, which has infiltrated into France like a second invasion, and draining out her riches with a terrible success.

In 1870 the population of Berlin was half a million ; to-day it is one and a quarter. The Teutons increase and multiply at the rate of 8 per 1000 inhabitants, the French but by 2. Berlin—never an attractive spot, .was till then half-dead, and but the' chief place of the civil and military services. To-day is the capital of a nation, where rapidly rises an industrial city, elbowing into the shade the military quarter. Streets have been multiplied tenfold; the traffic is considerable, and the modest city of twenty years ago is now a centre of luxury and brilliancy.

Even the army is changed, in the sense of being ameliorated. Victorious, it works to perfect its organisation as if it had been defeated. The writer, alluding to the severe, almost brutal discipline to which the conscript is subjected, asserts not the less he will find such training an auxiliary to him when leaving the army, and returning to his civil state. Even the "volunteers for a year," most of the young men destined for the learned professions, or to the career of merchants, &c., have to work at soldiering as persistantly as those comrades putting in the full period of active service under the flag. Thei Germans highly appreciate this twelve months army drill, which secures its military power such an element of intelligence and enlightened patriotism. In France there is a crusade to abolish the " volunteer " system, and make all serve in the ranks a Procrustean period. M. Charles Bigot is a shrewd observer and a thoughtful writer. He has just returned from a trip to the United States, and prints his impressions. The roadstead of New York, including the city itself and the towns of Brooklyn and New Jersey, he says, represent 2i millions of people. It will in time rise to four millions, "an agglomeration of human beings the world has yet to witness." M. Bigot forgets such already exists in London. Business life at New York commences at nine in the morning, when the tram cars and railways empty their thousands of workers into all the arteries of the metropolis. Time is so precious that no one cares or seems to walk. Even the houses have lifts to economise movements in the getting up of stairs. This habit of not taking exercise, joined to indulging in heavy meals, accounts for the frightful stomach miladies of the citizens. All the inhabitants are great workers. There appears to be no place save for men resolved to make a fortune, hence why they are sternly adventurous and bold. The amount of energy each toiler expends uses its owner up very quickly. This explains why old men are rare in New York. M. Bigot does not consider" New York a handsome city. All the streets appear to be the same—monotony repeated. He attests that his emigrated countrymen settled down in New York are as much politically divided as in the old country. They live in two camps, regarding each other as mutual enemies. President Cleveland, M. J3igot states, has nothing military about him, save his moustache. He is some 45 years of age, and very stout; a coinfortable-looking citizen, with a fund of common sense and shrewdness.