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Show 188 EXPRESSION OF GRIEF: CHAP. VII. the point of death; and he distinctly ~aw the ~ye-brows rai. se d at t 11 e 1. nnei. co rners , the eyehds droo. ping, the forehead wr.t nlde d I·n t h e rot' delle ' the mouth sltO'htly b open w1. th the corners muc h d epr· e·s sed · He then came from' behind a screen of plants and spoke to the poor woman, who started, burst into a bitter, flood of tear:::;, an dbe soug ht hi·m t,o cure her baby. The s.e cond case was that of a Hindustani man, who from Illness and poverty was compelled to sell his favourite goat. After receiving the money, he repeatedly looked a~ the money in his hand and then at the goat, as if doubt1ng whether he would not return it. lie went to the goat, which was tied up ready to be led away, and the animal reared up and licked his hands. I-Iis eyes then wavered fron1 side to side; his ''mouth was partially closed, with th0 " corners very decidedly depressed." At last the poor man see1ned to Inake up his mind that he 1nust part with his goat, and then, as Mr. Scott saw, th~ e!ebrow~ became slightly oblique, with the charactensttc .puckering or swelling at the inner ends, but the wnnklc::.l on the forehead were not present. The man stoo.d thns for a 1ninute, then heaving a deep sigh, burst into tears, raised up his two hands, blessed the goat, turned round, and without looking again, went away. On the cause of the obliq~tity of the eyebrows uncler SU;{fering.-J)uring several years no expression seemed to me so utterly perplexing as this which we are here considering. Why should grief or anxiety cause the central fascire alone of the frontal muscle together with those round the eyes, to contract? Here we seem to have a complex movement for the sole purpose of expressing grief; and yet it is a comparatively rare expression, and often overlooked. · I believe the explanation is not so difficult as it at first appears. Dr. Duchenne gives a photograph of the young man before C!IAP. VII. OBLIQUE EYEBROWS. 189 ~eferr~d to, who, when looking upwards at a strongly Illuminated surface, involuntarily contracted his griefmuscles in an exaggerated manner. I had entirely forgotten this photograph, when on a very bright day with the sun behind me, I met, whilst on horseback, a girl whose eyebrows, as she looked up at me, became extremely oblique, with the proper furrows on her forehead. I have observed the san1e n1oven1ent under similar circumstances on several subsequent occasions. On my return home I made three of my children, without giving them any clue to my object, look as lono- and as attentively as they could, at the summit of~ tall tree standing against an extremely bright sky. With all three, the orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal mu~cles were energetically contracted, through reflex action, from the excitement of the retina, so that their eyes might be protected from the bright light. But the! tried their utmost to look upwards; and now a curious struggle, with spasmodic twitchings, could be observed between the whole or only the central portion of the frontal muscle, and the several muscles which ~ erve. to lower the eye~rows and close the eyelids. The Involuntary contraction of the pyramidal caused the basal . part of their noses to be transversely and deeply wnukled. In one of the three children the whole eyebrows were momentarily raised and lo,~erecl by the alternate contraction of the whole frontal muscle and of the muscles surrounding the eyes, so that th whole breadth of the forehead was .alternately wrinkled and smoothed. In the other two children the forehead became wrinkled in the middle part alone rectangular furrows being thus produced; and the ey~brows were rendered obliqu~, with their inner extremities puckered and swoll~n ;-In the one child in a slight degree, in the other In a strongly marked manner. This differ- |
