He had conserved a type of feature
which, common enough up to the present, seems to be in danger of
extinction; the passing of the aquiline, the slow disappearance of the
Roman nose, are facts patent to thoughtful observers of national
traits. Any contemporaneous collection of portraits of representative
men in the higher walks of life reveals the fact that this fine racial
curve is rapidly becoming extinct. From the Duke of Wellington down,
this nose has been associated with men prominent in military and naval
affairs, in literature (notably poetry and criticism) and in finance
and diplomacy, until the possession of such a significant organ has
become almost the _sine qua non_ of an individual destined to be famous
or successful. Varieties of course existed, such as when combined with
beetling brows and sunken eyes one recognized the professor or
arch-critic of his generation. Or, when taken with the square
forehead, thin mouth and visionary eyes of the military genius, one saw
some great general. Or simply existing in some silly scion of good
family, and meaning nothing whatever, in this case usually over-high at
the thin bridge, and in profile far too strong for the weak rest of the
face. In women of gentle extraction this nose was found beautifully
proportioned. In belles of the mid-Victorian era were the lineaments
of Caesar clearly revealed, associated with the delicacy of colouring
and rounded chin and cheek which redeemed them from hard masculinity,
so that fifty years ago in any representative gathering of England's
fairest and noblest the observer would note a similarity of feature,
especially in profile, between peers and peeresses, poets and
poetesses, statesmen and the _grandes dames_ of society. Caricatured,
it lived in the drawings of Leech and Du Maurier. Taken seriously, it
inspired creative artists both of pen and brush when dealing with the
heroic. Superficial writers confused it with the Hebraic nose, and in
prints of criminal and depraved characters one frequently found it
distorted and wrenched to conditions of ugliness. Tennyson and the
latest murderer apparently owned the same facial angle, if one
corrected the droop of the eyebrow, the curve of the nostril, the set
of the ear. Thus the Roman or aquiline nose made itself and its
possessor known to the world. Other noses might, if they liked, take a
back seat! this nose never. Sala, Lamb, Kingsley--all had varieties of
the nose. Th