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Physiognomy

noun
(pl. physiognomies)
1.
The human face ('kisser' and 'smiler' and 'mug' are informal terms for 'face' and 'phiz' is British).  Synonyms: countenance, kisser, mug, phiz, smiler, visage.






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"Physiognomy" Quotes from Famous Books



... Benjamin, and pressing forward as if a little jealous of her station, stood a middle-aged woman, dressed in calico, rather violently contrasted in color with a tall, meagre, shapeless figure, sharp features, and a somewhat acute expression of her physiognomy. Her teeth were mostly gone, and what did remain were of a tight yellow. The skin of her nose was drawn tightly over the member, to hang in large wrinkles in her cheeks and about her mouth. She took snuff in such quantities as to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... thousands of stones [the butchers' stone is eight pounds] upon each million. And universally the best prima facie title to a pure Greek descent will be an elegantly formed, but somewhat under-sized, person, with a lively, animated, and intelligent physiognomy; of which last may be said, that, if never in the highest sense rising to the noble, on the other hand, it never sinks to the brutal. At Liverpool we used to see in one day many hundreds of Greek sailors from all parts of the Levant; these were amongst the most probable descendants from the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... wild-looking place, with magnificent mountains in every direction around, but all frowning black with volcanic basalt; and the people horribly ugly—black and ferocious in physiognomy. They were just in the busiest time of the indigo harvest; but they had herds of very fine cows brought home, as the sun in setting threw over us the shadow of the mountains of Gilboa. My companion from Jerusalem looked up with horror to these hills, and began ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... No animal's physiognomy can be more hideous, when seen from the front, than the countenance of the largest South American vampire-bat. Fancy a creature measuring twenty-eight inches in expanse of wing, its large leathery ears standing out from the sides and top of the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... toward Deronda and looked at him. There was a smile of irony in his eyes as their glances met; but it was at least better that he should have disregarded her as one of an insect swarm who had no individual physiognomy. Besides, in spite of his superciliousness and irony, it was difficult to believe that he did not admire her spirit as well as her person: he was young, handsome, distinguished in appearance—not one of these ridiculous and dowdy Philistines who thought it incumbent ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... gained sufficient control of his emotions to indulge in a feeble jest. The girl's face was a study at the sight of her cousin. Hamilton, a disinterested observer, read astonishment, annoyance, and resignation in the wide-opened eyes. Bones, who prided himself upon a working knowledge of physiognomy, diagnosed the same symptoms as conveying a deep admiration combined with the re-awakening of ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... An airy, lithesome figure she has, and the beat of her footfall is cadenced to the measure of joyous music. Frail she seems compared with Lela's well-rounded figure, but if she has not equal strength, she has elasticity; and if more energy and power is indicated by the physiognomy of Lela, Majoli has ambition ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... they neared the house she lost them; then they entered the room and came through it slowly, looking about them with an air of good-humoured amusement. Fleda's eye was fixed, but her mind puzzled itself in vain to recover what, in her experience, had been connected with that fair and lady-like physiognomy, and the bland smile that was overlooked by those acute eyes. The eyes met hers, and then seemed to reflect her doubt, for they remained as fixed as her own, while the lady, quickening her steps, came up ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... sorry sight, the unhappy man, unable for the moment to account for his plight, stood aghast, until his gaze, penetrating to the rear of his smudged physiognomy, beheld the reflection of the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... see and be seen on all sides, came Elizabeth herself, then in the prime of womanhood, and in the full glow of what in a Sovereign was called beauty, and who would in the lowest rank of life have been truly judged a noble figure, joined to a striking and commanding physiognomy. She leant on the arm of Lord Hunsdon, whose relation to her by her mother's side often procured him such ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... for the hostess was no sooner asked the question than she readily agreed; and, with a curtsy and smile, wished them a good journey. However, lest Fanny's skill in physiognomy should be called in question, we will venture to assign one reason which might probably incline her to this confidence and good-humour. When Adams said he was going to visit his brother, he had unwittingly imposed on Joseph and Fanny, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... any skill in physiognomy, which I think I have," he writes to Clarendon, "she must be as good a woman as ever was born." "I cannot easily tell you," he writes again; "how happy I think myself; I must be the worst man living (which I think I am not) if I be not a good husband." "Never ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... general thing, each man was mated with a woman. The soldiers, however, came in pairs or little squads, accompanied by women. I did not much like any of the French faces, and yet I am not sure that there is not more resemblance between them and the American physiognomy, than between the latter and the English. The women are not pretty, but in all ranks above the lowest they have a trained expression that supplies ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... picked the catalogue up and held it out to her she noticed that his bulging eyes and queer retreating face were suffused with a glow of admiration. He was so unpleasant-looking that she would have resented his homage had not his odd physiognomy called up some vaguely agreeable association of ideas. Where had she seen before this grotesque saurian head, with eye-lids as thick as lips and lips as thick as ear-lobes? It fled before her down a perspective of innumerable newspaper portraits, all, like the original before ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... its own patois, in Monaco. You would never spot it in the somewhat Teutonic cosmopolitanism of the Condamine and Monte Carlo tradesmen and hotel servants. It is not apparent in the impassive croupiers of the Casino. But within a few hundred yards, in half a dozen streets and lanes, the physiognomy, the mentality, the language of the people make you realize that regarding Monaco as a separate country is not wholly a polite fiction to relieve the French Government of the responsibility for the Casino. These people are different, children as well as grown-ups. They are ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... will satisfy their rude vanity, in some cases also, blood revenge and superstition."[1077] Cannibalism is one in the chain of causes which keeps this people more savage than their neighbors, most of whom have now abandoned it. "It is one of the most beastly of all the beastlike traits in the moral physiognomy of man." It is asserted that cannibalism has been recently introduced in some places, e.g. Florida (Solomon Islands). It is also said that on those islands the coast people give it up [they have fish], but those inland retain it. The notion probably prevails amongst all that population ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... has not hitherto received special notice, though apparently of considerable interest, is the prevailing feminine physiognomy of the males, at least of those of the northern section. If any one will take the trouble to study carefully a hundred or more good photographs of males of pure blood he will find that two thirds, if not a greater proportion, ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... traversing the boulevards of Paris, from the quiet circles of the Marais to the fashionable quarters of the Chaussee-d'Antin, and I observed for the first time, not without a certain philosophic joy, the diversity of physiognomy and the varieties of costume which, from the Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule even to the Madeleine, made each portion of the boulevard a world of itself, and this whole zone of Paris, a grand panorama of manners. Having at that time no idea of what the world was, and little thinking that one ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... the moment he felt a hand placed on his chest, while all the black's physiognomy seemed to ask him ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... a so much richer pasturage and shade to the fancy, has so many cells with so many different kinds of honey, is so indulgent in its multiform appeals to human nature, that Protestantism will always show to Catholic eyes the almshouse physiognomy. The bitter negativity of it is to the Catholic mind incomprehensible. To intellectual Catholics many of the antiquated beliefs and practices to which the Church gives countenance are, if taken literally, as childish as they are to Protestants. But they are childish in the pleasing sense of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... Intercourse of the Sexes, and the Philosophy of Marriage; the Plague; Polygamy, Prostitution and its Consequences; Meteors and Celestial Influences; Miracles, Monkish Frauds and Criminal Excesses; Phrenology and Physiognomy, &c. Catalogues will be ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various

... common run—a woman fit for helpmate and wife. Well, I, too, must confess myself very much misled. I believed her to be all that you imagined; indeed, if her face be any criterion, she is utterly unspoiled by the world and its wickedness. In my careful studies in physiognomy I have found that very seldom does a perfect face like hers cover an evil heart. Hence, I confess, that this discovery has amazed me quite as much as it ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... tongue against the teeth. Well, by dint of punching their teeth with their tongues the English have ended by getting those elongated jaws, which, as you said just now, is one of the distinctive characteristics of their physiognomy." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... peculiarity, commend it to us as historical. The leading acts of Alfred's life are, of course, beyond doubt. And as to his character, he speaks to us himself in his works, and the sentiments which he expresses perfectly correspond with the physiognomy of the portrait. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... Weishaupt had, like Diderot and d'Holbach, no other God than Nature herself. From his doctrine would naturally follow the German ultra-Hegelianism and the system of anarchy recently developed in France, of which the physiognomy suggests a ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... stature, affable demeanor, and physiognomy calm, though bearing traces of anxiety, moved from group to group, seldom speaking, and appearing to pay but little attention either to the merriment of the younger guests or the graver remarks of the exalted dignitaries or members of ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... sale was carried on by barter, a system of trading not wholly comprehensible to us strangers, although we saw the natives offer specimens of what they had to exchange. As onlookers, such a novel exhibition afforded a fine field for the study of Icelandic physiognomy, the expressions of anxiety, pleasure, or disappointment being depicted on their faces when the coveted goods were knocked down to the would-be purchaser, or not. To these poor people this must have been a meeting of the greatest importance, as their winter comforts ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... was a tall, full-chested, finely-limbed gladiator of perhaps four and twenty. Broad forehead; nose straight and high enough; lower part of the face oval; on the whole a good physiognomy. Cheek bones rather strongly marked; a hint of Scandinavian ancestry supported by his name. Thurstane is evidently Thor's stone or altar; forefathers priests of the god of thunder. His complexion ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... Diana had long ago decided what kind of a man they admired and their tastes seemed exactly similar. He must be very tall and distinguished looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes, and a melting, sympathetic voice. There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert's physiognomy, but of course ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... full of exquisite sympathy with the unfolding of natural beauty and of slow fruitfulness; to the second stage belong the parables of keen watchfulness and of the proximate, sudden second coming. Both movements are essential to the physiognomy of our Lord. And they are not simply differences in self-manifestation; they represent a growth, a relatively new element, in His human soul's experience ...
— Progress and History • Various

... does not produce the same species in analogous climates, either in the plains of isothermal parallels, or on table-lands the temperature of which resembles that of places nearer the poles, we still remark a striking resemblance of appearance and physiognomy in the vegetation of the most distant countries. This phenomenon is one of the most curious in the history of organic forms. I say the history; for in vain would reason forbid man to form hypotheses on the origin of things: he is not the less tormented with these ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... These personal advantages were now departed. Crippled in hands, knees, and legs, he supported himself with difficulty upon a crutch, with the aid of an attendant's shoulder. In face he had always been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not improved his physiognomy. His hair, once of a light color, was now white with age, close-clipt and bristling; his beard was gray, coarse, and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and commanding; the eye was dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... this sovereign is a very large, old, grey-headed black man, called Shegar, which means Sultan. This, however, I must observe is a misinterpretation of the word Shegar, which is an African-Arabic word, and signifies red or carrotty, and is a word applicable to his physiognomy; but certainly not to his rank:—Abd 442 Shegar, a carrotty or red Negro. If these two testimonies, since 1800, be correct, then the anachronism of which I am accused in the New Supplement to the Encyclopedia ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... beginnings are obscure, for it originated in caution and fear; but as the work betrays the workman, and the national physiognomy the native, it is evident that so inquisitorial an act could only have originated in the Inquisition itself. Feeble or partial attempts might previously have existed, for we learn that the monks had a part of their libraries called the inferno, which was not the part which they least visited, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... the neighborhood of Pawtucket. The number of inhabitants being not very large, I had leisure, during my visits to the Providence Plantations, to inspect the face of the country in the intervals of more fascinating studies of physiognomy. I heard some talk of a great elm a short distance from the locality just mentioned. "Let us see the great elm,"—I said, and proceeded to find it,—knowing that it was on a certain farm in a place called Johnston, if I remember rightly. I shall never forget my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... window, looking on all sides, and trying to read in the physiognomy of every passer-by whether that individual was an actor in the mysterious drama which was preparing, and in which she instinctively understood that Raoul was to play the chief part. She remained, then, with a beating heart, her neck stretched out, and her eyes wandering hither and ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... Though excellent portrait-painters, Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and De Keyser (1596?-1679) do not provoke enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group so essential in the ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... legible characteristic of Miss Shepperson's physiognomy. A plain woman of something more than thirty, she had gentle eyes, a twitching forehead, and lips ever ready for a sympathetic smile. Her attire, a little shabby, a little disorderly, well became the occupant of furnished lodgings, at twelve and sixpence a week, in the unpretentious suburb of ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... said the Doctor. "In addition to your good right arm, you have your subtle brain. I know nothing of you but what I see; but I see by your physiognomy that ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... of a noble not quite allowed to decay, but merely existing shorn of its full glories. "Nuernberg—with its long, narrow, winding, involved streets, its precipitous ascents and descents, its completely Gothic physiognomy—is by far the strangest old city I ever beheld; it has retained in every part the aspect of the Middle Ages. No two houses resemble each other: yet, differing in form, in colour, in height, in ornament, all have a family likeness; and with their peaked and carved gables, and projecting ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... other theory. He had travelled to Tartary in the suite of the French ambassador, and resided some years at the court of the Great Khan, where he had acquired the Tartar language, and become deeply learned in the history and customs of that ancient people. He had taken numerous drawings of their physiognomy and features, and many casts of Tartar visages. With a view to learn their opinions of the Deity, and a future state, he had officiated for a full year as the conjuror or powwow of a tribe. When he returned to Europe, he brought with him a couple of human ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... represented to have been somewhat above the middle stature, and well proportioned; his features large, his complexion dark, and his black, bushy eye-brows so flexible, as to admit of his giving an infinitely comic expression to his physiognomy. He was the best actor of his own generation, and by his counsels, formed the celebrated Baron, the best of the succeeding. He played all the range of his own characters, from Alceste to Sganarelle; though he seems to have been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various

... She had an open front, an aquiline nose, an agreeable mouth, and her chin, though long, was not mis-shapen. Her hair was auburn, her eyebrows black and rather thick, and her blue eyes had a gentleness which was often affected, but oftener still a mixture of pride. Her physiognomy was not deficient in expression; but this expression never discovered what was passing in the soul of Catherine, or rather it served her the better to disguise it."—Life of Catherine II., by W. Tooke, in. 381 (translated from Vie de Catherine II. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... woman whose tall slenderness, combined with a remarkable physiognomy, arrested the old man's attention. She was not handsome—that, surely, was his first impression? The cheek-bones were too evident, the chin and mouth too strong. And yet the fine pallor of the skin, the subtle black-and-white, in which, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of the former maker of canvas money-bags would be incomplete if we omitted to give a description of one of her best dinners. The physiognomy of the bourgeois cook of 1840 is, moreover, one of those details essentially necessary to a history of manners and customs, and clever housewives may find some lessons in it. A woman doesn't make empty bags for twenty years without looking out for the means to fill a few of them. Now Brigitte had ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... persistence. They were too small, too individual, and pinned the imagination down too closely. This dagger dance let in upon her a larger atmosphere, in which one human being was as nothing, even a goddess or a siren prodigal of enchantments was a little thing not without a narrow meanness of physiognomy. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... and black coarse hair. their eyes are sometimes of a dark yellowish brown the puple black. I have observed some high acqualine noses among them but they are extreemty rare. the nose is generally low between the eyes.- the most remarkable trait in their physiognomy is the peculiar flatness and width of forehead which they artificially obtain by compressing the head between two boards while in a state of infancy and from which it never afterwards perfectly recovers. this is a custom among all the nations ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... sharpening the knife on the stove-pipe and handing down a jar containing alcohol with a tumor in it, "I am a peaceful man and don't want any fuss; but if you insist on a personal encounter, I will slice off fragments of your physiognomy at my leisure, and for twenty minutes I will fill this office with your favorite features. I make a specialty of being a peaceable man, remember; but if you'll just say the word, I'll put overcoat button-holes and eyelet-holes and crazy-quilts all over ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... speak of the Chinese fifty years ago; since they have had wars with Europeans they have learnt better to stand to their arms. But they were gradually exterminated by the Malays in these petty wars, and now all that remains of them is a trace of Celestial physiognomy in their Dyak descendants, and the knowledge of agriculture which ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... Anion and his priests: preference shown by Amenothes III. for the Heliopolitan gods, his marriage with Tii—The influence of Tii over Amenothes IV.: the decadence of Amon and of Thebes, Atonu and Khuitniatonu—Change of physiognomy in Khuniaton, his character, his government, his relations with Asia: the tombs of Tel el-Amarna and the art of the period—Tutanlchamon, At: the return of the Pharaohs to Thebes and the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... unfounded on his part; the truth being, that it was the Prophet's interest, above all things, to keep Rody out of danger, both for that worthy individual's sake and his own. Rody, We say, looked at him; and of a certainty it must be admitted, that the physiognomy of our friend, the Seer, during that whole day, was one from which no very high opinion of his integrity or good faith ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... Chinese Empire, in spite of the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, amid the chaos of African nationalities, and the fusion of American democracy, in the plains of Australia, and in the streets of San Francisco, the religion, customs, and physiognomy of the children of Israel are as distinct this day as they were three thousand years ago, when Moses wrote them in the Pentateuch, and Shishak painted them on the tombs of Medinet Abou. How does the Infidel ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... anomaly of a mediaeval European city in the midst of the American landscape. This air, this sky, these clouds, these trees, the look of these fields, are what we have always known; but the houses, and streets, and vehicles, and language, and physiognomy are strange. As I walked upon the grand terrace I saw the robin and kingbird and song sparrow, and there in the tree, by the Wolfe Monument, our summer warbler was at home. I presently saw, also, that our republican crow was ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... its new paper. But the office was excited. The very room itself looked feverish. It was changed; more tables had been brought into it, and papers and litter had accumulated enormously; it was a room humanized by habitation, with a physiognomy that was ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... yourself the affected graces of a shopwoman with insignificant features, cold and ever-smiling eyes, complacent and placid physiognomy, devoid of real elegance, but having a certain love for glitter and tinsel, no doubt caught at her father's shopwindow, making her take pleasure in many-coloured satin bows, sashes and buckles; and her hair glossy with cosmetic, stiffly arranged by the hairdresser over a small, obstinate, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... and upon this being complained of, he said that he had set about it several times, but there was something so unfortunate in the features of the face that he was shocked every time that he examined it, and forced to leave off the work, and, if there was any stress to be laid on physiognomy, he was sure the person whom the picture represented was ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... Siena, Perugia, Amalfi, Lucca, Pisa, to mention only a few of the more notable, are indiscriminately called Republics. Yet they differ in their internal type no less than in external conditions. Each wears from the first and preserves a physiognomy that justifies our thinking and speaking of the town as an incarnate entity. The cities of Italy, down to the very smallest, bear the attributes of individuals. The mutual attractions and repulsions that presided ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... in the pantry there, but show your physiognomy in my presence. What the devil do you think Vattel would say to such ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... organ of reflection and deliberation of the New Netherlander. It was his constant companion and solace: was he gay, he smoked; was he sad, he smoked; his pipe was never out of his mouth; it was a part of his physiognomy; without it his best friends would not know him. Take away his pipe? You might as well take away ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... at first by some peculiarity of physiognomy or dress, and were known by such names as "Broken Nose," "Pink Shirt," "Cross Bars," "Gone Ears," etc.; if, afterward, any man developed some peculiarity of character, an observing and original miner would coin and apply a new name, which would afterward be accepted as irrevocably as a name conferred ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... ever saw. Other castles scarcely less strong are connected with this by subterranean passages known only to the Indians, while the unnatural blackness of the rock out of which Nature has constructed these defenses, and the weird, inhuman physiognomy of the whole region are well calculated ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... physiognomy continually reappear among artists. William M. Hunt looked like Horace Vernet, and Cranch in his old age resembled the Louvre portrait of Tintoretto, although his features were not so strong. He used to say in jest that he was descended from Lucas Cranach, but that the ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... unseasonable moment would only tend to close her heart more obstinately. Dinah was not satisfied without a more unmistakable guidance than those inward voices. There was light enough for her, if she opened her Bible, to discern the text sufficiently to know what it would say to her. She knew the physiognomy of every page, and could tell on what book she opened, sometimes on what chapter, without seeing title or number. It was a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the edges. Dinah laid it sideways on the window ledge, where the light was strongest, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... articles. Altogether, he was a somewhat formidable-looking character. By his side appeared, when the curtain drew up, a curious-looking clown, with a huge face, with all sorts of twists and curls in it, great big ears, a cock-up nose, and a short stumpy beard. This extraordinary physiognomy was covered with a high cap, which had a tassel and bells. He wore also a party-coloured waistcoat, huge full breeches of all the colours of the rainbow, hose of yellow, and long shoes with rosettes ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... the physiognomy, as it were, of a dwelling-house in Saumur which stands at the end of the steep street leading to the chateau in the upper part of the town. This street—now little frequented, hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in certain sections—is ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, that in his youth he had a good share of wit. Reader, if thou hadst seen the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, forever, A wit! a wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the "Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humor? No, indeed, you are not. Am I the life and soul of ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... morning, lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. Little details gave each field a particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from childhood: the pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope of the old marl-pit making a red background ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... all sympathy with the character which he was to personate. It would not have been endured, that a player should perform the part of a monarch in his ordinary dress, nor that of a hero with his own mean physiognomy. It is probable, also, that the likeness of every hero of tragedy was handed down in statues, medals, and paintings, or even in a series of masks; and that the countenance of Theseus, or of Ajax, was as well known to the spectators as the face of any of ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various

... Simons, "I am an Englishwoman, and—" He interrupted the discourse by making his tongue smack against the teeth of his upper jaw—superb teeth, indeed! "Presently," said he: "I am occupied." He understood only Greek, and Mrs. Simons knew only English; but the physiognomy of the King was so speaking that the good lady comprehended easily without the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... it prudent to prohibit him from again appearing in a military character on shore. Mr Fitzgerald could not understand this, as he was not at all aware of the peculiarity of his own physiognomy, and declared that he was ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... him with a total lack of the bland dignity Hollister remembered. The man seemed uneasy, distracted. His eyes had a furtive look in them. Hollister, however, had not come there to make a study of Mr. Lewis' physiognomy or manner. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... eyes were large and blue, but the blue was very pale, and they looked rather tired already. He was clean-shaven, and his mouth, notwithstanding its thin lips, was well-shaped. Fraulein Anna took an interest in physiognomy, and she made Philip notice afterwards how finely shaped was his skull, and how weak was the lower part of his face. The head, she remarked, was the head of a thinker, but the jaw lacked character. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... present skipper was mate. One fine July afternoon we let go our anchor alongside of the Castle of San Severino, in Matanzas harbor. A few days after our arrival I was in a billiard-room ashore, quietly reading a newspaper, when one of the losing players, a Spaniard of a most peculiarly unpleasant physiognomy, turned suddenly around with an oath, and declared the rustling of the paper disturbed him. As several gentlemen were reading in different parts of the room I did not appropriate the remark to myself, though I thought he had intended it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... bears all the marks of the sire that has actually begotten him (and not the marks of one that is only the husband of his mother). The son thus born is incapable of concealing the evidences that physiognomy offers. He is at once known by eyesight (to belong to another).[304] As regards the son made, he is sometimes regarded as the child of the person who has made him a son and so brings him up. In his case, neither the vital seed of which ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... high forehead. The closely-cropped beard left his chin free, and the fine mustache showed a mouth with a rather satirical curve and closely compressed lips A strong aquiline nose and narrow bright blue eyes completed a physiognomy indicating great reserve and a remarkable degree of melancholy. It is no advantage to a man to possess a Sphinx-like head. The pretty faces apparently full of secrets offer easy deceptions, and one expects that the mouth when open will reveal all that the eyes seem to mean. One ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... diverse races, the various nationalities being frequently distinguishable by differences in dress as well as in physiognomy and colour. In the oriental quarters of the city the curious shops, the markets of different trades (the shops of each trade being generally congregated in one street or district), the easy merchant sitting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... perused, but nevertheless well worthy the attention of those who are curious in the subject of which they treat, namely, the human face divine. They are two marble busts, facing each other; one of the founder of the Library, the other of its first President, Washington Irving. A finer study in physiognomy than these two busts present can nowhere be found; for never were two men more unlike than Astor and Irving, and never were character and personal history more legibly recorded than in these portraits ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... in the court, were the only tokens of its character. We were ushered at once into the presence of the Pasha, who is a man of about seventy years, with a good-humored, though shrewd face. He was quite cordial in his manners, complimenting us on our Turkish costume, and vaunting his skill in physiognomy, which at once revealed to him that we belonged to the highest class of American nobility. In fact, in the firman which he has since sent us, we are mentioned as "nobles." He invited us to pass a day or two with him, saying ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... masterpieces of painting, the traces of which study are distinctly visible in their later productions; and here, too, according to Cellini, the famous punch in the nose befell Buonarotti, by which his well-known physiognomy acquired its marked peculiarity. Torregiani, painter and sculptor of secondary importance, but a bully of the first class,—a man who was in the habit of knocking about the artists whom he could not equal, and of breaking both their models and their heads,—had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... in the ordinance, been employed by thee in the performance of thy daily rites before the sacred fire, and doth he remind thee in proper time as to when thy homa should be performed? Is the astrologer thou hast employed skilled in reading physiognomy, capable of interpreting omens, and competent to neutralise the effect of the disturbances of nature? Have respectable servants been employed by thee in offices that are respectable, indifferent ones in indifferent offices, and low ones in offices that are low? Hast thou appointed to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... are some of the chief, O Mansoul! of those that will seek to overthrow thee for ever. These, I say, are the skulkers in Mansoul; but look thou well into the law of thy King, and there thou shalt find their physiognomy, and such other characteristical notes of them, by which they certainly ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... secrecy of all who have to do with horses. It is no matter for wonder. The horse is one of those generous and somewhat careless animals that, if not taken firmly from the first, will surely give itself away. Essential to a man who has to do with horses is a complete closeness of physiognomy, otherwise the animal will never know what is expected of him. The more that is expected of him, the closer must be the expression of his friends, or a grave fiasco may have to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... went elbowing about amongst the ladies and gentlemen promenading the public walk, which commands so beautiful a view over the St. Lawrence, called the "Platform." Phrenology would have condemned him. Phrenology and Physiognomy combined, would have hung him, on the certain ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... went to Lady Duff Gordon's, who is the daughter of Mrs. Austin, where was a most agreeable party, and among others, Andersen, the Danish poet-author of the "Improvisatore." He has a most striking poetical physiognomy, but as he talked only German or bad French, I left him to Mr. Bancroft in the ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... room which we must not omit to notice. It is a looking-glass; and it hangs, of all places in the world, right over Mr. MacGentle's standing-desk, in the embrasure of the window. As often as he looks up he beholds the reflection of his cultured and sad-lined physiognomy, with a glimpse of dusky wall beyond. Is he a vain man? His worst enemy, had he one, would not call him that. Nevertheless, Mr. MacGentle finds a pathetic comfort in this small mirror. No one, not even he, could tell wherefore; but we fancy it to be like that an exile feels, seeing ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... change which had taken place in his form and physiognomy; and at the different aspect they had assumed. Not that the marks of melancholy were quite eradicated: but, when I considered his whole appearance, he was scarcely the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... He had a large head, thickly covered with dark hair, which, with his moustache and beard, heightened the wanness of his complexion. A massive forehead, deep-set eyes, thin, straight nose, large lips constantly drawn inwards, made a physiognomy impressive rather than pleasing. The cast of thought was upon it; of thought eager and self-tormenting; the mark of a spirit ever straining after something unattainable. At moments when he found satisfaction in reading the legend on some monument ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... queer little Frenchman, who has his breakfast, tea, and lodging here, and finds his dinner elsewhere. Monsieur S—— does not appear to be more than twenty-one years old,—a diminutive figure, with eyes askew, and otherwise of an ungainly physiognomy; he is ill-dressed also, in a coarse blue coat, thin cotton pantaloons, and unbrushed boots; altogether with as little of French coxcombry as can well be imagined, though with something of the monkey-aspect inseparable from a little Frenchman. He is, nevertheless, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... the family and the individual in behalf of the State, its existence transported to the Forum; the pagan life, in which the citizen absorbs the individual, and in which the calm and serene uniformity of indifferent centuries ends, by giving to each one the national physiognomy, bears no resemblance to the moral and social life of ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... added, of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of everything; for whether it was hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy to point them out by—he was eternally the same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my head I am—it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this poor ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... teeth, though, truth to tell, there was nothing to be proud of unless it was their bad shape and size. But the most striking features were the eyes, which somehow or another possessed a fiery reddish tinge, and added a certain fierceness to a physiognomy which would otherwise have ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... just this close correspondence between the two natures which is the basis of the whole science of physiognomy. By means of this nervous connection (which, as we have seen, lies at the bottom of the communication of feelings) the most secret movements of the soul are revealed on the exterior of the body, and passion penetrates even through the veil of the hypocrite. Each passion has its ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... upon a sea that carried forgotten life up from the depths below. Of forbidding, even menacing type, they somewhere mated with genuine grandeur. Unformed, according to any standard of human or of animal faces, they achieved an air of giant physiognomy which made them terrible. The unwinking stare of eyes—lidless eyes that yet ever succeed in hiding—looked out under well-marked, level eyebrows, suggesting a vision that included the motives and purposes of his very ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... remark that from time to time, just as the moon veils itself behind a passing cloud, the radiance of his brilliant and jovial physiognomy is eclipsed by the expression of a sadness immense, mysterious, infinite; this is followed by a look of angelic candor and sweetness and gentle heroism, that moves you strangely, even to the heart, and makes appeal to all your ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... General Dale was tall, erect, raw-boned, and muscular. In many respects, physical and moral, he resembled his antagonists of the woods. He had the square forehead, the high cheek-bones, the compressed lips, and, in fact, the physiognomy of an Indian, relieved, however, by a firm, benevolent Saxon eye. Like the red men, too, his foot fell lightly upon the ground, and turned neither to the right nor left. He was habitually taciturn, his face grave, he spoke slowly and in low tones, and he seldom laughed. ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... side of solid, red-bearded, undecorative Mr. Cass, Littleton may well have seemed a dandy. He was a slim young man with a delicate, sensitive face and intelligent brown eyes. He looked eager and interesting. In his case the almost gaunt American physiognomy was softened by a suggestion of poetic impulses. Yet the heritage of nervous energy was apparent. His appearance conveyed the impression of quiet trigness and gentility. His figure lent itself to his clothes, which were utterly inconspicuous, judged by metropolitan standards, but ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who are far less impressible ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... decorations are genuinely national and characteristic of the primitive Etruscan tomb, there can be no doubt that several Egyptian features in it, such as the sphinx and the lotus, and in some respects the colouring and physiognomy of the human figures, indicate some acquaintance with the land of the Nile. Now an inscription has been found at Karnac which records that Egypt was invaded by a confederation of Libyans, Etruscans, and other races, and was only saved ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... equal to his own, as though it had served its country in serving Cornudet. It was a fine meerschaum, admirably colored to a black the shade of its owner's teeth, but sweet-smelling, gracefully curved, at home in its master's hand, and completing his physiognomy. And Cornudet sat motionless, his eyes fixed now on the dancing flames, now on the froth which crowned his beer; and after each draught he passed his long, thin fingers with an air of satisfaction through his long, greasy hair, as he sucked ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... him first at Bayonne; then long subsequently beneath the brick wall at Novgorod; then beside the Bosphorus; and last at—at—O my respectable and cherished friend, where was it that I had last the felicity of seeing your well- remembered and most remarkable physiognomy?'" ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... estimable streets, streets always clean, streets always dirty, working, laboring, and mercantile streets. In short, the streets of Paris have every human quality, and impress us, by what we must call their physiognomy, with certain ideas against which we are defenceless. There are, for instance, streets of a bad neighborhood in which you could not be induced to live, and streets where you would willingly take up your abode. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... Rosa's celebrated picture of La Fortuna, the nose of one powerful ecclesiastic, and the eye of another were detected in the brutish physiognomy of the swine treading upon pearls, and in an ass, scattering with his hoofs the laurel and myrtle which lay in his path; and in an old goat, reposing on roses, some there were, who even fancied they discovered the Infallible Lover of Donna ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... which bedecked this person, he would have been known anywhere as a white man. His skin was burned to a dark bronze, but it had not the red tinge which characterizes the Indian. This white man had, indeed, a strange physiognomy. The forehead was narrow and sloped backward from the brow, denoting animal instincts. The eyes were close together, yellowish-brown in color, and had a peculiar vibrating movement, as though they were ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... my impressions I finally got upstairs again to bed. It was four o'clock in the morning. I laughed all the way up—at the grotesque banisters, the droll physiognomy of the staircase window, the burlesque grouping of the furniture, and the memory of that outrageous footstool in the room below; but nothing more happened to alarm or disturb me, and I woke late in the morning ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... close or hostile inspection there would have been some features of his ostensibly good-natured face—the shifty eye, the full and slightly drooping lower lip—which might have given a student of physiognomy food for reflection. But whatever the latent defects of Wain's character, he proved himself this evening a model of geniality, presuming not at all upon his reputed wealth, but winning golden opinions from those who came to criticise, of whom, of course, there were a few, the company ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... manhood, to suffer quietly for another as true a piece of bravery as to fell him for a careless word; it may be that purity, constancy, and reverence are as sure criteria of manhood as their opposites. It may be, I say; but be certain that a strong beard, a harsh voice, and a bull-dog physiognomy ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... themselves on being leaders in the best social circle in Massapequa. The incumbent of the local Presbyterian church, the Rev. Deetle, was a thin, sallow man of about thirty-five. He had a diminutive face with a rather long and very pointed nose which gave a comical effect to his physiognomy. Theology was written all over his person and he wore the conventional clerical hat which, owing to his absurdly small face, had the unfortunate appearance of being several sizes too large for him. Miss Deetle was a gaunt and angular spinster who had an unhappy trick ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... s. 51.), and others, have insisted, it is the effect on the skull of the great development of the jaw-muscles that causes it to differ so greatly in many respects from that of man, and has given to these animals "a truly frightful physiognomy." Therefore, as the jaws and teeth in man's progenitors gradually become reduced in size, the adult skull would have come to resemble more and more that of existing man. As we shall hereafter see, a great reduction of the canine teeth in the males would almost ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... little, attracts but scanty attention. I doubt whether English observers would discover any very striking trace of it in the ancient town of Salem. Still, with all respect to a York and a Shrewsbury, to a Toledo and a Verona, Salem has a physiognomy in which the past plays a more important part than the present. It is of course a very recent past; but one must remember that the dead of yesterday are not more alive than those of a century ago. I know not of what picturesqueness Hawthorne was ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... time, Mesmer has got a hundred thousand pounds by animal magnetism in Paris, and Mainaduc is getting as much in London. There is a fortune-teller in Westminster who is making little less. Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set. The diving [divining?] rod is still considered as oracular in many places. Devils are cast out by seven ministers; and, to complete the disgraceful catalogue, slavery is vindicated ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... Overbeck and the two Schadows much, and they are estimable both as artists and as men; but the Catholicism of Overbeck and one of the Schadows excludes entirely many topics of conversation." Overbeck is elsewhere described as of "very prepossessing physiognomy, taciturn and melancholy," with a "proselyting spirit." Bunsen, who no less than Niebuhr deplored these conversions, writes in 1817 that Overbeck had been for a fortnight in August a welcome guest at Frascati, ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... the spirit of Mr. Hicks's physiognomy. He sat stroking his wide-spreading moustache. Jonas Hicks had a self-made moustache which seemed to have borrowed its style from the horns of a Texas steer. It might be said that, for the moment, he looked serious; but you could never tell from his face exactly what his emotions ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... any form of government, he felt a preference for federal government. He was born under the Pyrenees; he was a Gascon of the Gascons, one of a people strongly distinguished by intellectual and moral character, by manners, by modes of speech, by accent, and by physiognomy, from the French of the Seine and of the Loire; and he had many of the peculiarities of the race to which he belonged. When he first left his own province he had attained his thirty-fourth year, and had acquired a high ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... is true all these qualities play in and influence or even constitute the impression that particular works of Art make upon us. One man admires a picture for its handling, its surface, the way in which the paint is laid on; another, for its illustration of the laws of physiognomy; another, because it reminds him of the spring he spent in Rome, the pleasant people he met there, etc. We do not always care to distinguish the sources of the pleasure we feel; but for any criticism we must quit these accidents and personalities, and attend solely to that in the work ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... taken him for an Italian, and I afterwards learned that he was a native of Provence, born within a stone's-throw of Italy. I never saw an ardent and enthusiastic character more strongly indicated by physiognomy, than in the case of this young officer; and I began to understand and explain to myself the feelings that had impelled him to challenge the man preferred by the mistress of his choice, even although that man's position was such as, in the eyes ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... charm of its own. Kullak prints the Fontana and Klindworth variants. This valse is suavely melancholy, but not so melancholy as the B minor of the same opus. It recalls in color the B minor mazurka. Very gay and sprightly is the G flat Valse, op. 70, No. I. The next in F minor has no special physiognomy, while the third in D flat contains, as Niecks points out, germs of the op. 42 and the op. 34 Valses. It recalls to me the D flat study in the supplementary series. The E minor Valse, without opus, is beloved. It is very graceful and not without sentiment. ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... mouth was well-proportioned, his lips full and high-coloured; his eyes were grey, sometimes arrogant but usually amiable in expression. His personality corresponded perfectly to his appearance. His countenance showed his character, and his character was a witness to the truth of his physiognomy. Nothing was contradictory, perfect was the harmony between the inner and the outer man, between the nobility of thought and the simple dignity, well-poised and graceful. Among the great ones of this earth, he was like a star in heaven. Every line proclaimed "I am a prince ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... despite his title and his high military rank, looks as if he were of inferior birth. Stalwart and square-cut, he has somewhat of the rustic in his physiognomy. Nefert, on the contrary (fig. 190), was a princess of the blood royal; and her whole person is, as it were, informed with a certain air of resolution and command, which the sculptor has expressed very ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... as the Squire hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom they once met on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher his physiognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laughter;—indeed, I have rarely met with an old gentleman who took absolutely offence at the imputed gallantries ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... that this friend was Mr. Cullen, afterwards a judge by the name of Lord Cullen. In Boswelliana (pp. 250-2), Boswell mentions him thrice, and always as 'Cullen the mimick.' His manner, he says, was wretched, and his physiognomy worse than Wilkes's. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 268) says that 'Cullen possessed the talent of mimicry beyond all mankind; for his was not merely an exact imitation of voice and manner of speaking, but a perfect exhibition of every man's manner of thinking on every subject.' Carlyle ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... experienced in my travels, enjoyments which have amply compensated for the privations inseparable from a laborious and often agitated life. These enjoyments, which I endeavoured to impart to my readers in my 'Remarks upon the Steppes,' and in the 'Essay on the Physiognomy of Plants,' were not the only fruits I reaped from an undertaking formed with the design of contributing to the progress of natural philosophy. I had long prepared myself for the observations which were the principal ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... inspire fear rather than love; but the fact that he had courted her presence and looked to her for consolation had touched Mary's heart, and she had become reconciled to all that was forbidding and disagreeable in the lunatic physiognomy. Was he not the victim of a visitation which entitled him to respect ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... may form what countenance you please. An open, serene, intelligent countenance, a little brightened by cheerfullness, not wrought into smiles or simpers, will presently become familiar and grow into habit. A year will with certainty accomplish it. Your physiognomy has naturally much of benevolence, and it will cost you some labour (which you may well spare) to eradicate it. Avoid, for ever avoid, a smile or sneer of contempt; never even mimic them. A frown of sullenness or discontent is but one degree less hateful. You ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... other privileged Places within the Verge of the Court; they appear like Porters and Chairmen, and some like Operators for the Feet; and have had such Experience in their Business, and are so well skill'd in Physiognomy, that they know an insolvent Person upon the first sight. The severe Usage his Apparel has met with from the Bristles, or else his conscious Countenance in the shy and suspicious Look he casts over his Shoulder upon every one he ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... whom the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but still he had the health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without the grace of the city in his compact figure and easy movements. There was in his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character of innocence and simplicity. You could see that he had been brought up by a woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other children; and such intelligence as was yet developed in him was not ripened by the jokes and cuffs of his ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... at night Without a light Upon an arc of white. If ruff it was of dame Or shroud of gnome, Himself, himself inform. Of immortality His strategy Was physiognomy. ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... only one man has succeeded in putting Paganini's true physiognomy upon paper—a deaf painter, Lyser by name, who, in a frenzy full of genius, has with a few strokes of chalk so well hit the great violinist's head that one is at the same time amused and terrified at the truth of the drawing. "The devil guided my hand," the deaf painter said to me, chuckling ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... only a leader of Corsican deserters, suggests one that has already been referred to. It has also been suggested that Lowe was not a gentleman, and references have been approvingly made to comparisons of his physiognomy with that of the devil, and of his eye with "that of a hyaena caught in a trap." As to this we will cite the opinion of Lieutenant (later Colonel) Basil Jackson, who was unknown to Lowe before 1816, and was on friendly terms with the inmates ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... by a scarlet fillet, but with no other covering on their heads. These Indians are good-sized men; their cheek-bones are prominent, and in general appearance they resemble the great American family to which they belong; but their physiognomy seemed to me to be slightly different from that of any other tribe which I had before seen. Their expression is generally grave, and even austere, and possesses much character: this may pass either for honest bluntness or fierce determination. The long black hair, the grave and much-lined features, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... or complete, intermittent or constant, and may be the cause of such symptoms as alteration in the tone of the voice, catarrh of the respiratory passages, snoring, cough, headache, inability to concentrate the attention, alteration in the physiognomy, or deformity of the chest. The half-open mouth, drooping jaw, lengthened appearance of the face, narrow nostrils, and vacant expression are characteristic signs ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... slave, contrary to the customs of Africa. But might he not be reduced to this state very unjustly, and yet by no means contrary to the African laws? Besides, how could we distinguish between those who were justly or unjustly reduced to it? Could we discover them by their physiognomy?—But if we could, Who would believe that the British captains would be influenced by any regulations made in this country, to refuse to purchase those who had not been fairly, honestly, and uprightly enslaved? They who were offered to us for ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... moment to leave my carriage, my daughter, and Mr. Schlegel at the inn, and to go alone and on foot into the streets of the town, and take the chance' of entering the first house whose master or mistress had a physiognomy that pleased me. I would obtain of them an asylum for a few days; during this time, my daughter and Mr. Schlegel might say that they were going to rejoin me in Austria, and I should leave Salzburg afterwards in the disguise of a country woman. Hazardous in the extreme as this resource appeared, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... Painter, in his reigning days; and the Prussian Chodowiecki, [Pronounce KODOV-YETSKI;—and endeavor to make some acquaintance with this "Prussian Hogarth," who has real worth and originality.] Saxon Graff, English Cunningham had to pick up his physiognomy from the distance, intermittently, as they could. Nor is Rauch's grand equestrian Sculpture a thing to be believed, or perhaps pretending much to be so. The commonly received Portrait of Friedrich, which all German limners can draw at once,—the cocked-hat, big eyes ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... was in perfect keeping with his physiognomy. It was of that neat and simple style which always characterizes a man of the world who is governed by refined and elegant tastes. His linen was spotlessly white, his cloth extremely fine, and his well-brushed ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience

... to his own, as if it had served the country in serving Cornudet. It was a superb meerschaum pipe, admirably blackened, as black as its master's teeth, but fragrant, nicely curved, shining, familiar to his hand, and completing his physiognomy. And he remained still, his eyes fixed now on the flame of the fire, now on the foam crowning his jug; and every time, after he had drunk, he passed, with an air of satisfaction, his thin, long fingers in his flowing greasy hair, while he sucked ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... has been largely superseded by the Slav and the Italian. Every one of the older industrial towns has been encrusted in layer upon layer of foreign accretions, until it is difficult to discover the American core. Everywhere are the physiognomy, the chatter, and the aroma of the modern steerage. Lawrence, Massachusetts, is typical of this change. In 1848 it had 5923 inhabitants, of whom 63.3 per cent were Americans, 36 per cent were Irish, and about forty white persons belonged to other nationalities. ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will know as well what to expect from the one ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... now consider the criminal's physiognomy. In this connection it must be borne in mind that a prolonged period of imprisonment will change the face of any man, whether he is a criminal or not. Political offenders who have undergone a sentence of penal servitude, and who may be men of the highest character, acquire ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... passengers on board, I did not know a soul, male or female; and I had the happiness or misfortune of being equally unknown to them. Under these circumstances my entry into the ladies' cabin would have been deemed an intrusion; and I sat down in the main saloon, and occupied myself in studying the physiognomy and noting the movements of ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... their long-cherished injuries. It was bad enough before, when Irishmen had nothing except grievances, but at least they had these, handed down from father to son, from generation to generation, along with the family physiognomy, two precious, priceless heirlooms, remarkable as being the only hereditary possessions upon which the brutal Saxon failed to cast his blood-shot, covetous eye. And now the grievances are taken away, the Lares and Penates of the farmer's cabin ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... physiognomy is precisely the same; when a boy, you looked more serious. The day you entered Parliament in hunting-dress I saw you get into your coach; and that evening the President said to his wife, 'Madame, we are ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... I saw him approach my mother—whom he had known in England—with a familiarity at once respectful and charming. He plainly wished to please those whom he addressed, and he had the gift of doing so. In that kind of success he was rarely wanting, especially with women. His physiognomy as well as his manner helped. It was open and benevolent, always animated by an easy, perhaps a slightly commonplace smile, that of a man conscious that he was irresistible, and that he could, with a few amiable words, overcome ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand



Words linked to "Physiognomy" :   colloquialism, Britain, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, UK, Great Britain, pudding-face, face, human face, human head, U.K., pudding face



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