to be fair, while the more reflective and emotional classes tend to be dark,[1]
There is another physical characteristic to which the national biographers frequently allude, though I do not propose to attempt to give it any numerical values, and that is personal beauty or the absence of it. A very large proportion of persons are referred to as notably handsome, comely, imposing; a very considerable, but smaller, proportion are spoken of as showing some disproportion or asymmetry of feature, body or limbs, as notably peculiar or even ludicrous in appearance. A not uncommon type is that of the stunted giant, with massive head and robust body, but very short legs.
There is one feature, however, which is noted as striking and beautiful in a very large number of cases, even in persons who are otherwise wholly without physical attractions. That is the eyes. It is nearly always found that descriptions of the personal appearance of men of genius, however widely they may differ in other respects, agree in finding an unusual brilliancy of the eyes. Thus the eyes of Burns were said by one observer to be like coals of living fire,' and Scott writes that they 'literally glowed'; while of Chatterton's eyes it was said that there was 'fire rolling at the bottom of them.' It is significant that both of these instances, chosen almost at random, were poets. While, however, the phenomenon seems to be noted more frequently and with more emphasis in poets, it is found among men of genius of all classes. One can only suppose it to be connected with an unusual degree of activity of the cerebral circulation.
In regard to the mental and emotional disposition of British persons of genius, the national biographers enable us to trace the prevalence of one or two tendencies. One of these is shyness, bashfulness or timidity. This is noted in thirty-four cases, while thirty-two others are described as very sensitive, nervous or emotional, and, although this is not equivalent to a large percentage, it must of course be remembered that the real number of such cases is certainly very much larger, and also that the characteristic is in many cases extremely well marked. Some had to abandon the profession they had chosen on account of their nervous shyness at appearing in public; others were too bashful to declare their love to the women they were attracted to; Sir Thomas
- ↑ I may remark concerning this index of pigmentation that, while it yields results which are strictly comparable among themselves in the hands of a single observer, proceeding in a uniform manner, it is doubtful whether two observers would carry it out in a strictly identical manner. Beddoe's index of nigrescence, founded on hair-color and applied directly to living subjects, is a convenient formula for indicating the degree of pigmentation. But in my observations, largely made on portraits (in which the hair was often whitened by age, absent, concealed beneath a wig, or obscured by the darkening of the paint), it was necessary to accept eye-color as the primary basis of classification.
