The hands of my watch indicated the hour of two. As I noticed them, a sudden motion from Mrs. Barry startling me from my apathy, caused me to look round. At one glance I saw her with her hand upraised, looking at the child, and listening! In that brief, rapid view, her colorless face, livid by contrast with the ebony tresses-with its white lips, partly open, and its strange, unhuman expression, made more appalling by the dim, distorted light and shadow of the chamber-was so dreadful, that instantly-instinctively-I averted my eyes. At the same moment-our action had been almost simultaneous-the hideous knock, loud and violent, struck upon the door, and—great God!— the eyes of the child suddenly unclosed, and for an instant looked directly into mine with that wild, unearthly brightness, that supernatural meaning which I had never but once seen in them before! The past and present, in that look, were linked with a shock. I was petrified with terror. My blood curdled-a cold sweat started on my forehead-a stifled shriek rose in my throat-my reason swooned upon its throne! I looked away. For a moment of awful horror,

the low voice whispering slowly in the shadows | had not once changed her position-her attitude of the room-Death! The ticking of the clock was still that of a listener. I drew out my began to excite me. So slow-so monotonous; watch, and hung it on one of the carvings of it numbed my brain; it grew louder, beat by the bed, where I could note the time. The beat. Formless things, with a terrible smooth- child scarcely breathed. As I took notice of ness to their surface-with a terrible silence in this decrease of consciousness, a wild sense of their motion, began to whirl and dilate in my the approaching moment which would end the mind, revolving with an awful velocity, but life so dear to me swelled in my heart until it silently-silently; and I grew giddy with their became agony. I took the little form in my dreadful speed, and although marble-calm with- arms and held it to my bosom. Every tender out, became frantic within, and longed to burst emotion, every fading hope and gentle memory out in shrieks and wild raving. I looked at linked with her, melted into one agonizing ferthe dial; the hands pointed to half past one. vor of affection, and held her there, as if to be I sighed. Something seemed to mimic the retained forever. Over that last embrace the sigh. There were two small key-holes in the slow minutes passed away. An icy torpor succircular white face. They became strange ceeded; my soul grew blank and desolate, and eyes, and looked at me quietly-very quietly! a dull despair gathered over it, like a frigid sky. I looked away. Every object in the room as- I laid her on the pillow-withdrawing my arms sumed some wild form, and all were watching from her body-and looked quietly on her face. me. There was an oblong table, covered with books and other articles, standing near the centre of the chamber. The lamp, which had been placed for some reason on the floor, threw its shadow upon the wall in the exact semblance of a coffin! Not an outline was wanting to complete the likeness. I watched it, and with every thought and emotion rushing frantically with the silent current of that awful whirl in my mind, I watched it calmly. The small lid of the coffin opening over the face of the dead, was counterfeited in the mocking shadow by a book which stood on end upon the table. The shadowy lid was, of course, uplifted. I moved to the table, standing between it and the lamp, and saw my own shadow on the wall, bending over the coffin, in the attitude of one looking on the face of a corpse within. I felt a demoniac interest in the contemplation of the dread phantasma. Slowly-impelled by a desire which I could not control-I laid down the book upon the table. Slowly the spectral lid sank, under the touch of the shadowy hand, into the level plane of the coffin. I stood, and looked, and listened to the faint respiration of the child. Timing with its low breathing-in which the very silence became more still, I timing with the gigantic eddying sweep of that held my breath, and did not dare to move. tremendous lunacy of size and motion in my Fearfully, at last, I looked round, and saw that mind, I still heard the ticking of the clock, the eyelids were closed. I laid my trembling the low word that left no echo on the air-hand upon her heart. Then darkness rushed Death! death! It grew louder-louder-with with a roar upon my brain, and I sank slowly no accompanying increase of quickness, but down. Every sensation with me became, for a steady and slow, till it seemed to swell into a time, mercifully lost. The child was dead. roar, and stunned my brain with the appalling thunder-strokes of that word-Death! death! death! I could bear it no longer. I fixed my burning eyes upon the dial. The hands pointed to a quarter of two. A thought leaped to my mind; I obeyed it. I went over and stopped them. A blessed silence followed. The phantoms faded. I felt a sense of exultation and relief. Although still in a state of powerful abnormal excitement, a reactionary movement had commenced; I was regaining my self-command.

I resumed my place by the bedside. The mother had taken no notice of my actions; she

WH

THE SENSES.

I. TASTE.

"Our mouth shall show forth Thy praise." “HEN Turandot, the far-famed princess of the East, who gave her lovers riddles to solve, and took their lives if they failed, saw one more favored suitor near victory, she suddenly asked him, "What is that palace that even the poorest possess, and the richest can no further adorn? Its portals are hung with crimson curtains of wondrous fabric; they fall upon gates of whitest ivory, carved with subtle cunning, firm and fast as the mountains, and

yet opening and shutting with lightning's speed. | and ample supplies are always at hand. The Within are hid man's costliest jewels, and from helpless, diminutive worm in the hazel-nut can the depths of that palace cometh forth a voice hardly move on its imperfect legs, and knows that ruleth the world ?" not at first where to seek for food. But-like The reply was instantaneous: "It is the the boy of the German story-teller, who was Mouth of Man."

shut up in a mountain made of pancakes, and lived upon its savory walls until he had made an opening through which he beheld the light of heaven-the worm sits in the very heart of the sweet kernel, and has only to bite and to cat without moving from the spot.

Three features there are in the human face, representing as many great organs of the senses, which constitute the noblest part of the body of man as he was made after the image of God. They are at the same time the most active instruments of the soul, and therefore placed in There are some animals in the very lowest such prominence that without any one of them classes who either really take no food at all, or the countenance is not only disfigured, but the so secretly that it has as yet escaped the eye of divine impress seems to have vanished. They man and the powers of the microscope. The are eyes, nose, and mouth. Of these, the mouth mouth of certain insects, for instance, is, during would seem to be by far the most important, for their perfect state, as imago, actually closed, and its principal duties alone in the marvelous house- apparently no food at all can be taken. But hold of the human structure are four-fold. One there is at least one animal-the Notommatait has, in man in common with all animals, that which, from the day of its birth, when it leaves of receiving the necessary food, solid or liquid, the egg, to the moment of death, never takes and of thus supporting the earth-born body. The the slightest nutriment. It has neither mouth mouth becomes thus the great gate of all ma- nor digestive apparatus; it is built up by the terial supplies which enter through the two gradual absorption of the stores laid up for it portals, the lips, and repeats, in its anatomical | by bountiful Nature in the egg itself, and its structure in the head, the whole lower-digestive | life, moreover, is only of short duration. apparatus, as the nose repeats there, in like In the higher animals food is generally inmanner, though on a much reduced scale, the troduced through a single orifice, which has, organs of respiration. Nor can this be claimed significantly, in most languages a name differas a high prerogative in man. Among the ent from that which designates the mouth in Buddhists the custom prevails to this day that man. Here, however, the greatest variety prethe priest of Brahma can not eat from a vessel vails; what is single in one class is a thousandthat has been used by an Indian of lower caste, fold multiplied in another, and numerous famnor must he suffer himself to be seen eating by | ilies exist endowed with almost countless openhuman eye. In like manner there is uponings or pores, which all empty into a common centre. Even the size and the form of the single orifices differ greatly, and present some most beautiful instances of God's marvelous creations. Some insects are destined to feed on the sweet juices of flowers, which the large expanse of their wings prevents them from entering. Most of these have, like the butterflies generally, a long tube, which lies snugly coiled up under the head when it is not used, but can be extended in the twinkling of an eye, and with unerring precision sucks up the honey from the bottom of deep blossoms, while the insect itself rests lightly on the outer edges. Among the most beautiful of such contrivances are the long, straight suckers of the most of the hated tobacco-worms. The proboscis of one of this class, living at the Cape of Good Hope, is three inches long, while the whole animal measures but eight lines! Others again have, as is well known, a most elaborate set of instruments for the purpose of making incisions into the skin, and thus flies, fleas, gnats, and mosquitoes feast royally upon our life's-blood.

earth a whole numerous class of beauteous beings who hold their meals in secret, far from the eye of man, and never take food from the plate of others. This is the great kingdom of Plants. The tree hides his food-imbibing root in the dark depths of the earth, and neither the eye of man nor the sharp senses of the keenest of animals can discern the faint vapors that feed the majestic agave, as it raises its magnificent candelabra high into the air, and crowns them with gorgeous flowers.

But among animals, almost without exception, the table is set, as with the monarchs of former days, in the open light of heaven, and all the world may come and witness their daily meals. Not that they all sit at the same table, or feed in the same manner. For here, also, we find that our great mother Earth brings herself the required food to the young and the helpless. Tiny birds, lying weak and wingless in their dark nests, are fed by loving parents; and other animals, that have no parents in the sense of this world, and yet can not move, are cared for by a love higher and stronger than all earthly love. The poor oyster is chained to the rock in the midst of the moving waves; it has neither eyes to see nor hands to grasp its daily bread-nothing but a mouth that ever craves food, a stomach that needs being filled without ceasing. Yet it has but to open its shell, lined with the brilliant colors of the rainbow,

When food consists of solid matter, nature generally adds to the simple opening new means of seizing the desired morsel. The simplest of these are hair-like cilia, which, by their incessant and violent vibration, cause a current richly laden with varied stores to enter the mouth. Such is the case in most mollusks; nor are the very giants of the earth exempted from such

most humble operations. The colossal whale | body, and to raise the enraptured soul to a bliss must thus race from icy Greenland to the trop- than which this world can give none higher nor ics in search of his diminutive, almost invisible purer. food. The huge animal gulps continually enor- It is this wonderful, four-fold duty, and the mous volumes of water into his capacious mouth, vast importance of the mouth with regard to all and then ejects them again through his blow- the inner life of man, as well as to his outward holes, straining, as it were, through his exqui- existence, which make this feature so specially site whalebone sieve, all the small fishes and expressive in our face, so strangely suggestive marine animals which the water may have con- to the student of the human countenance. What tained. higher praise can we bestow upon the most inIn the simplest animals the passage of food telligent eyes than that they "speak"? Brow, to the mouth is direct and almost instantane-eye, and nose, have been found to refer more ous; then follow more and more ingenious to the theoretic and intellectual in man, while mechanisms to convey it there; and lastly, special organs are given, independent of the mouth, to seize food and to carry it to the head.

the mouth represents more fully and directly what is ethical in him-his character, in fact. The distinctive mark of the human head, whose roundness and symmetry depend mainly upon this one great feature, it is large and prominent in animals; but in man, it stands back and leaves the main power and the strongest im

above it-the lofty brow and the bright, speaking eyes, the organs of the higher life in Godlike man.

Mastication itself, and the whole inner organism of the mouth are almost always concealed by Nature. Even among men there is often a certain shyness perceptible as to per-pression to the upper part-not in vain placed forming the humble act of feeding the earthborn body in public. In some nations-and those frequently the most barbarous—it is considered a disgrace to be seen eating; and even It strikes the more careful observer at the in highly civilized countries, one sex has not first glance, that the fine human mouth, resting rarely a reluctance to admit the other as wit-on delicate, finely-traced jaws, and displaying nesses of the unpoetical process. Even the the symmetrically arranged teeth in a semigreat Goethe could not escape many a bitter circle within, is not like the mouth of animals, sarcasm, when he introduced sentimental, deli-intended for grazing on herbs, or seizing and cate Lotte, on her first meeting with Werther, tearing bloody prey. It has here no menial, as distributing bread and butter to hungry chil-degrading labor to perform; it but receives the dren, leaving the lurking suspicion in the mind of the reader that she herself was not a stranger to such enjoyment.

food handed up by its obedient servants, the hands, and at once shows that, besides this humble and unavoidable purpose, it possesses The second great duty of the mouth of man the higher power and fulfills the loftier duty is to render indispensable aid in taking in and of uttering speech. Hence the German poet, giving out the breath of life. It is true that Herder, could say with justice, "A well-cut, respiration can be carried on without such as- delicate mouth is perhaps the best recommendsistance by the nostrils only; but our daily ex-ation in life, for as we find the portal to be, so perience, and still more so an exceptionable we expect will also be the guest that steps forth climate, disease, or a death-laden atmosphere, from it, the Word, coming from the heart and convince us at once of the important services the soul." which the mouth always renders us in breathing.

Both these purposes, however, the mouth of man fulfills only in like manner with that of all animal creation. But in man it has loftier duties assigned it, and greater ends to achieve. Free from all sensual necessity or enjoyment, it serves, in the third place, to modulate the air of heaven so as to assume the form of language and song. Thus the mouth becomes the beautiful organ through which man rules and reigns supreme upon this earth; it fashions for him, out of matter that can not be seen nor felt, the word—that word which is master of this world, which connects man with his God on high and creation below, which holds in its marvelous mysterious power the blessing and the curse, the weal and the woe of all mankind.

Nor must we, lastly, omit the sexual functions of the mouth; its secret power to give, by the simple touch of lip and lip, pleasures for which men are willing to sacrifice all other things earthly; to send a thrill through the

Even its lowest and humblest part, the chin, so simple in appearance, so insignificant in comparison with other features, is here made in a manner peculiar to man, and in this, its genuine form, not met with among animals. With us, it is formed by the two arms of the lower jaw, which elsewhere separated, or, as in beetles and crawfish, lying horizontally, are in man grown together. It thus becomes, of itself, one of the most striking characteristics of the human figure. In animals, generally, the skull is developed more lengthways, and the lower part of the head, with the mouth, predominates largely. This indicates clearly the superiority of sensual necessities and enjoyments over the intellect, by the preponderance of the feeding apparatus over the upper parts of the head with the brain and its more immediate organs. In man the reverse takes place. Here the lower part withdraws modestly and leaves room and expression to the broad brow, the seat of intellect, with its life-sparkling eyes. The great physiognomist, Lavater, used therefore to

body, and yet their strength exceeds that which the whole frame, working by pressure, could ever produce. To crush a peach stone a mass of several hundred weights is required, and yet every healthy person can break it in a moment!

The lips are, as we have seen, the beautiful gates through which pass both earthly material food and the word, that is and was spirit. While all other parts of our mouth are more or less exclusively instruments used for the physical life, the lips are far more important in their in

say, "The more chin, the more man:" referring, | How small, how diminutive appear these mus of course, to the original formation of bones and cles, even when laid bare by the scalpel, in commuscles, and not to the fat, which often accumu-parison with the whole size and power of the lates there in masses. Both extremes of size, however, are, in the chin as elsewhere, equally objectionable and repugnant to our finer and often unconscious sensibilities, in precise proportion as they approach corresponding forms in animals. A prominent lower jaw, which always causes the upper one likewise to protrude, has invariably the effect of giving a more or less animal appearance to the human head. Hence its almost unfailing increase of size among the lower races, where it becomes a distinctive mark, and its striking effect on the head of in-timate connection with mind and soul. Among dividuals. It is necessarily accompanied by an inferior development of the skull behind and above, its own substance having been obtained at the expense of these parts, thus giving an expression of deficient energy and intellectuality to the whole. But as a large chin always indicates greater strength and energy of life, and is therefore more frequently met with in man, so a lower jaw of too small dimensions gives a childish appearance to the head. This is very natural, though we may not all be aware of the cause, as the jaw is in children but very small, and develops itself perhaps more slowly than any other feature, the nose only excepted. Hence also the diminished size of the chin in very old men, with whom it becomes, from the loss of teeth and the shrinking of fat, once more as small as it was in early infancy, and suggests, among other sad symptoms of the kind, the coming of the "second childhood." A scanty chin is never considered a favorable sign of particular strength of mind, and even a deficiency of flesh and fat, allowing the bone formation to become too prominent, is apt to leave a painful impression. The exuberant chin, it is true, is said to indicate a phlegmatic, Baotian nature, given to sensual enjoyments, and little troubled with scrupulous cares. The mentum subquadratum of the ancients is in all parts fully developed, and suggests, thus, perfection within, as it seems to be perfect without. But they disliked scantiness even more than exuberance; a very small chin in men they considered unnatural and a very bad omen, suggesting that its owner was "false, and given to lying like serpents." With us, also, a lean and very pointed chin is considered either a sign of old age, or, in youth, of a narrow character, such as we find in the miser or the bigot.

It is well known that the action of the mouth rests mainly upon the movable lower jaw, the upper part having but a very limited play. But their combined power is truly enormous, thanks to certain muscles which belong to the strongest of the human structure. The nerves of volition, in their secret throne behind, send their order along the mysterious channels that lead from the spine to the forward parts, and, like the flash of lightning, seen only to vanish in an instant, the two jaws meet with a force far exceeding that of the most powerful engines.

animals, where hands and feet are encased in hoofs, single or cloven, or hid amidst thick fur and unsightly coverings, so that they serve not for the sense of touch, the lips become the almost exclusive seat of that sense, especially when they or the nostrils are prolonged, as in the pig, the mole, and the elephant. But how inferior are they even there, with all their astonishing power and marvelous adaptation, in comparison with the exquisite delicacy of the lips of man? If any part of the face may be called articulate, it is surely this part of the mouth, repeating, as it does, in strange beauty, the general contrast between the upper part of the countenance, the intellectual, and the lower, the sensual or practical features. This is seen even in the outlines; the upper lip, shaped like an arrow bent in the middle, thus reproduces the two main lines of the eyes, their upper arches, while the lower lip repeats the roundness of the chin-a correspondence seen in this also, that the motions of both these features invariably go together, so that if the eyebrows are raised in joy or astonishment, the mouth also opens; if the eyes droop and are dejected, the corners of the mouth also are drawn downward, conveying at once the expression of sorrow.

There prevails here also, of course, a great variety of forms, and not in individuals only, but in whole races. A remarkable instance of this is shown in the difference between the Negro and the Caucasian races. With the former the lips are thick, fleshy, and protruding, and indicate thus, at once, a much duller, more material nature of mind and of senses, than is suggested by the firmly drawn and finely cut lips of more favored nations. But even among the noblest of our kind there are differences, broad and striking, in the varied forms of the mouth. Strongly marked and fully developed lips belong to men of strong will, endowed with abounding energy. Too full and too large, overfed and overhanging, they betray still more clearly that their main use has been to seize and convey food, and thus cause us to suspect the owner as a gourmet, or a person of great indolence. In dry, heartless men, where the intellect has been fostered and developed at the expense of the heart, they are apt to be large, but lean and drawn in, and as an exuberance

Passing through these truly "eloquent gates," we meet at first the formidable instruments that serve to destroy solid food, and to prepare it for the much narrower gate through which it will soon have to pass when swallowed. Here also

of material indicated coarseness and gross sens- | thus to the whole face a permanent expression. uality, so we seldom err if we suspect the heart Nor ought it to be forgotten that the best judges hid behind very narrow, pale lips, to be cold, of men have ever most carefully watched the avaricious, or wicked. Where they are pecu- delicate and unconscious play of the lips, while liarly soft and beautifully shaped, they rarely the owner was speaking, and thus professed to fail to belong to a noble, perhaps slightly sens- obtain the most accurate and reliable insight ual, but always poetical mind; and the finer into his character. and the more delicate they appear under such favorable circumstances, the more we fancy they are used and adapted for man's highest prerogative, speech. Of the two lips the upper decides as to the tastes and the affections of man. Pride and wrath curve it, often painfully; good-nature has combined most beauteous forms with humor and love round it in pleasing outlines; and on it hang, in mysterious attraction, love and desire, the kiss imprinted, and the longing desire. Hence, also, the great attention that painters and sculptors give to the proper connection of this part of the mouth with the nose. Classic beauty in Greek sculpture, and in the ideal heads of Raphael, shows it to us ever short and fine, when a noble, sensitive character is to be represented. Physiognomists tell us that the effect is produced by thus placing the mouth nearer and closer to the regions of intellect in the face, and it is certain that a long and generally slightly bulging upper lip is only met with in coarse individuals, and in low, uncivilized nations.

The lower lip embraces and bears up the upper one like "a cushion of roses, on which rests the crown of dominion," but it serves always more to receive food, and is consequently less in psychological expression. Hence a truly noble face must necessarily show us the upper lip overhanging and overruling the lower-if the latter protrude, even but slightly, vulgarity or wickedness are instantly there depicted.

highest utility. The well-rounded lines of the lips open slightly to show us behind the square massive teeth, whose straight and perpendicular lines contrast not less harmoniously with the round lines near them, than the ruby of the lips with their own immaculate whiteness.

Where fluids only are taken as food by animals, teeth are utterly wanting, as in diminutive insects or gigantic fishes, like the sturgeon. In birds and other insects they would make the head too heavy for their aerial flight, and so they have been transferred nearer to the centre of gravity, and assume the shape of gizzards. Among the higher animals the ant-eater is the only one who is entirely without them. In the lower orders, on the other hand, they abound, and are even found in the stomach, where the food is finally ground and crushed, while some fish, like the trout and pike, possess a marvelous number and variety of teeth, now blunt and now sharp, and of all possible forms and sizes. Mastication itself is, however, here carried on not in the mouth but in the funnel-like entrance to the gullet. It is well known that their arrangement and structure, in their wonderful Pierced by some savages to receive barbarous adaptation to food and habitation, are among ornaments, painted and tattooed by others, the the most striking evidences of the agency of a lips attain their highest beauty among us by Divine Will in the creation. Hence their altheir exquisite delicacy of expression. What most paramount importance in the study of the can equal the subtlety and the speaking power animal kingdom, and the certainty with which of the nervous tremor of the upper lip as occa- Cuvier could, even in his dreams, scorn the Devsionally seen in highly sensitive persons? Toil's threat to eat him, because cloven feet and inexpress scorn and contempt we raise the eye-cisors showed Satan unable to take animal food! brows and "turn up our nose," but intense disgust finds its highest expression at last in the raised lower lip. Vanity and supercilious pride, often mere haughty ignorance, repeat the same motion, and give finally a permanent bend to the lip, and with it a painful, because irritating, expression to the whole face. A similar remarkable power is given to the corners of the mouth where the lips meet. Drawn up or down, they alter instantaneously the expression of the countenance, and change perhaps, more swiftly than any other feature, with each new whim of the ever-changing mind. They droop in the weary, the grieved, and the suffering; they rise with cheerful hopes and heartfelt joy; hence we raise them when we laugh, and let them sink when we are weeping. As one or the other tendency prevails in our mind, the frequent repetition of either of these effects gives, here also, finally a fixed position to this feature, and VOL. XII.-No. 67.-F

With man they lie in two close parabolic ranks, and are all on a level; the two protruding corner-teeth, which give so decided a character to animals, as expressive signs of rude, physical force, are here missing, because they are not needed. The upper teeth are beautifully grouped around the palate, which separates the mouth from the inner cavern of the nose; the lower are, in like manner, arranged around the tongue. In this, all races agree, though not in the minor details; for in some nations the two rows fall just one upon another, so that all the front teeth are gradually worn away horizontally, as we observe in the skulls of the old Egyptians, the Esquimaux, and most of the first inhabitants of Northern Europe, whose remains have been discovered in the famous "giants' barrows" accompanied by stone utensils. In other races the upper teeth slightly project beyond the lower; here the pressure is