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Jerome K. Jerome - "Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green"

Charles Dickens - "A Child's History of England"

James Fenimore Coopoer - "Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief"

John Webster - "The Duchess of Malfi"

The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals

C >> Charles Darwin >> The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals




Although with the insane the grief-muscles often act persistently;
yet in ordinary cases they are sometimes brought unconsciously
into momentary action by ludicrously slight causes.
A gentleman rewarded a young lady by an absurdly small present;
she pretended to be offended, and as she upbraided him, her eyebrows
became extremely oblique, with the forehead properly wrinkled.
Another young lady and a youth, both in the highest spirits,
were eagerly talking together with extraordinary rapidity;
and I noticed that, as often as the young lady was beaten,
and could not get out her words fast enough, her eyebrows
went obliquely upwards, and rectangular furrows were formed
on her forehead. She thus each time hoisted a flag of distress;
and this she did half-a-dozen times in the course of a few minutes.
I made no remark on the subject, but on a subsequent occasion I
asked her to act on her grief-muscles; another girl who was present,
and who could do so voluntarily, showing her what was intended.
She tried repeatedly, but utterly failed; yet so slight a cause
of distress as not being able to talk quickly enough, sufficed to
bring these muscles over and over again into energetic action.

The expression of grief, due to the contraction of the grief-muscles,
is by no means confined to Europeans, but appears to be common to all
the races of mankind. I have, at least, received trustworthy accounts
in regard to Hindoos, Dhangars (one of the aboriginal hill-tribes
of India, and therefore belonging to a quite distinct race from the
Hindoos), Malays, Negroes and Australians. With respect to the latter,
two observers answer my query in the affirmative, but enter into no details.
Mr. Taplin, however, appends to my descriptive remarks the words
"this is exact." With respect to negroes, the lady who told me
of Fra Angelico's picture, saw a negro towing a boat on the Nile,
and as he encountered an obstruction, she observed his grief-muscles
in strong action, with the middle of the forehead well wrinkled.
Mr. Geach watched a Malay man in Malacca, with the corners of his
mouth much depressed, the eyebrows oblique, with deep short grooves
on the forehead. This expression lasted for a very short time;
and Mr. Geach remarks it "was a strange one, very much like a person
about to cry at some great loss."

In India Mr. H. Erskine found that the natives were familiar with
this expression; and Mr. J. Scott, of the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta,
has obligingly sent me a full description of two cases.
He observed during some time, himself unseen, a very young
Dhangar woman from Nagpore, the wife of one of the gardeners,
nursing her baby who was at the point of death; and he distinctly
saw the eyebrows raised at the inner corners, the eyelids drooping,
the forehead wrinkled in the middle, the mouth slightly open,
with the corners much depressed. He then came from behind a screen
of plants and spoke to the poor woman, who started, burst into
a bitter flood of tears, and besought him to cure her baby.
The second 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 at the money
in his hand and then at the goat, as if doubting whether he would
not return it. He went to the goat, which was tied up ready
to be led away, and the animal reared up and licked his hands.
His eyes then wavered from side to side; his "mouth was
partially closed, with the corners very decidedly depressed."
At last the poor man seemed to make up his mind that he must part
with his goat, and then, as Mr. Scott saw, the eyebrows became
slightly oblique, with the characteristic puckering or swelling at
the inner ends, but the wrinkles on the forehead were not present.
The man stood thus for a minute, 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 obliquity of the eyebrows under suffering_.--
During 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 fasciae 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 referred to,
who, when looking upwards at a strongly illuminated surface,
involuntarily contracted his grief-muscles 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 same
movement 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 long and as attentively as they could,
at the summit of a tall tree standing against an extremely bright sky.
With all three, the orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles were
energetically contracted, through reflex action, from the excitement of
the retina, so that their eyes might be protected from the bright light.
But they 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 serve to lower the eyebrows and close the eyelids.
The involuntary contraction of the pyramidal caused the basal
part of their noses to be transversely and deeply wrinkled.
In one of the three children, the whole eyebrows were momentarily
raised and lowered by the alternate contraction of the whole frontal
muscle and of the muscles surrounding the eyes, so that the 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 eyebrows
were rendered oblique, with their inner extremities puckered and swollen,--
in the one child in a slight degree, in the other in a strongly
marked manner. This difference in the obliquity of the eyebrows
apparently depended on a difference in their general mobility, and in
the strength of the pyramidal muscles. In both these cases the eyebrows
and forehead were acted on under the influence of a strong light,
in precisely the same manner, in every characteristic detail,
as under the influence of grief or anxiety.

Duchenne states that the pyramidal muscle of the nose is less under
the control of the will than are the other muscles round the eyes.
He remarks that the young man who could so well act on his grief-muscles,
as well as on most of his other facial muscles, could not contract the
pyramidals.[5] This power, however, no doubt differs in different persons.
The pyramidal muscle serves to draw down the skin of the forehead
between the eyebrows, together with their inner extremities.
The central fasciae of the frontal are the antagonists of the pyramidal;
and if the action of the latter is to be specially checked,
these central fasciae must be contracted. So that with persons having
powerful pyramidal muscles, if there is under the influence of a bright
light an unconscious desire to prevent the lowering of the eyebrows,
the central fasciae of the frontal muscle must be brought into play;
and their contraction, if sufficiently strong to overmaster the pyramidals,
together with the contraction of the corrugator and orbicular muscles,
will act in the manner just described on the eyebrows and forehead.

When children scream or cry out, they contract, as we know,
the orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles, primarily for
the sake of compressing their eyes, and thus protecting them
from being gorged with blood, and secondarily through habit.
I therefore expected to find with children, that when they
endeavoured either to prevent a crying-fit from coming on,
or to stop crying, they would cheek the contraction of
the above-named muscles, in the same manner as when looking
upwards at a bright light; and consequently that the central
fasciae of the frontal muscle would often be brought into play.
Accordingly, I began myself to observe children at such times,
and asked others, including some medical men, to do the same.
It is necessary to observe carefully, as the peculiar opposed
action of these muscles is not nearly so plain in children,
owing to their foreheads not easily wrinkling, as in adults.
But I soon found that the grief-muscles were very frequently
brought into distinct action on these occasions. It would
be superfluous to give all the cases which have been observed;
and I will specify only a few. A little girl, a year and
a half old, was teased by some other children, and before
bursting into tears her eyebrows became decidedly oblique.
With an older girl the same obliquity was observed,
with the inner ends of the eyebrows plainly puckered; and at
the same time the corners of the mouth were drawn downwards.
As soon as she burst into tears, the features all changed and
this peculiar expression vanished. Again, after a little boy
had been vaccinated, which made him scream and cry violently,
the surgeon gave him an orange brought for the purpose,
and this pleased the child much; as he stopped crying all the
characteristic movements were observed, including the formation
of rectangular wrinkles in the middle of the forehead.
Lastly, I met on the road a little girl three or four years old,
who had been frightened by a dog, and when I asked her what was
the matter, she stopped whimpering, and her eyebrows instantly
became oblique to an extraordinary degree.


[5] Mecanisme de la Phys. Humaine, Album, p. 15.

Here then, as I cannot doubt, we have the key to the problem why the central
fasciae of the frontal muscle and the muscles round the eyes contract
in opposition to each other under the influence of grief;--whether their
contraction be prolonged, as with the melancholic insane, or momentary,
from some trifling cause of distress. We have all of us, as infants,
repeatedly contracted our orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles,
in order to protect our eyes whilst screaming; our progenitors before us
have done the same during many generations; and though with advancing years
we easily prevent, when feeling distressed, the utterance of screams,
we cannot from long habit always prevent a slight contraction of the
above-named muscles; nor indeed do we observe their contraction in ourselves,
or attempt to stop it, if slight. But the pyramidal muscles seem
to be less under the command of the will than the other related muscles;
and if they be well developed, their contraction can be checked only by
the antagonistic contraction of the central fasciae of the frontal muscle.
The result which necessarily follows, if these fasciae contract energetically,
is the oblique drawing up of the eyebrows, the puckering of their inner ends,
and the formation of rectangular furrows on the middle of the forehead.
As children and women cry much more freely than men, and as grown-up
persons of both sexes rarely weep except from mental distress, we can
understand why the grief-muscles are more frequently seen in action,
as I believe to be the case, with children and women than with men;
and with adults of both sexes from mental distress alone. In some of
the cases before recorded, as in that of the poor Dhangar woman and of
the Hindustani man, the action of the grief-muscles was quickly followed
by bitter weeping. In all cases of distress, whether great or small,
our brains tend through long habit to send an order to certain muscles
to contract, as if we were still infants on the point of screaming out;
but this order we, by the wondrous power of the will, and through habit,
are able partially to counteract; although this is effected unconsciously,
as far as the means of counteraction are concerned.


_On the depression of the corners of the mouth_.--This action is
effected by the _depressores anguili oris_ (see letter K in figs.
1 and 2). The fibres of this muscle diverge downwards, with the upper
convergent ends attached round the angles of the mouth, and to
the lower lip a little way within the angles.[6] Some of the fibres
appear to be antagonistic to the great zygomatic muscle, and others
to the several muscles running to the outer part of the upper lip.
The contraction of this muscle draws downwards and outwards the corners
of the mouth, including the outer part of the upper lip, and even in
a slight degree the wings of the nostrils. When the mouth is closed
and this muscle acts, the commissure or line of junction of the two
lips forms a curved line with the concavity downwards,[7] and the lips
themselves are generally somewhat protruded, especially the lower one.
The mouth in this state is well represented in the two photographs
(Plate II., figs. 6 and 7) by Mr. Rejlander. The upper boy (fig. 6)
had just stopped crying, after receiving a slap on the face from another boy;
and the right moment was seized for photographing him.


[6] Henle, Handbuch der Anat. des Menschen, 1858, B. i. s. 148, figs.
68 and 69.

[7] See the account of the action of this muscle by Dr. Duchenne, `Mecanisme
de la Physionomie Humaine, Album (1862), viii. p. 34.

The expression of low spirits, grief or dejection, due to the contraction
of this muscle has been noticed by every one who has written on the subject.
To say that a person "is down in the mouth," is synonymous with saying
that he is out of spirits. The depression of the corners may often be seen,
as already stated on the authority of Dr. Crichton Browne and Mr. Nicol,
with the melancholic insane, and was well exhibited in some photographs sent
to me by the former gentleman, of patients with a strong tendency to suicide.
It has been observed with men belonging to various races, namely with Hindoos,
the dark hill-tribes of India, Malays, and, as the Rev. Mr. Hagenauer
informs me, with the aborigines of Australia.

When infants scream they firmly contract the muscles round
their eyes, and this draws up the upper lip; and as they
have to keep their mouths widely open, the depressor muscles
running to the corners are likewise brought into strong action.
This generally, but not invariably, causes a slight angular bend
in the lower lip on both sides, near the corners of the mouth.
The result of the upper and lower lip being thus acted on is that
the mouth assumes a squarish outline. The contraction of the depressor
muscle is best seen in infants when not screaming violently,
and especially just before they begin, or when they cease to scream.
Their little faces then acquire an extremely piteous expression,
as I continually observed with my own infants between the ages
of about six weeks and two or three months. Sometimes, when they
are struggling against a crying-fit, the outline of the mouth
is curved in so exaggerated a manner as to be like a horseshoe;
and the expression of misery then becomes a ludicrous caricature.

The explanation of the contraction of this muscle, under the influence
of low spirits or dejection, apparently follows from the same
general principles as in the case of the obliquity of the eyebrows.
Dr. Duchenne informs me that he concludes from his observations,
now prolonged during many years, that this is one of the facial muscles
which is least under the control of the will. This fact may indeed
be inferred from what has just been stated with respect to infants
when doubtfully beginning to cry, or endeavouring to stop crying;
for they then generally command all the other facial muscles more
effectually than they do the depressors of the corners of the mouth.
Two excellent observers who had no theory on the subject, one of them
a surgeon, carefully watched for me some older children and women
as with some opposed struggling they very gradually approached
the point of bursting out into tears; and both observers felt sure
that the depressors began to act before any of the other muscles.
Now as the depressors have been repeatedly brought into strong
action during infancy in many generations, nerve-force will tend
to flow, on the principle of long associated habit, to these
muscles as well as to various other facial muscles, whenever in
after life even a slight feeling of distress is experienced.
But as the depressors are somewhat less under the control of the will
than most of the other muscles, we might expect that they would
often slightly contract, whilst the others remained passive.
It is remarkable how small a depression of the corners of the mouth
gives to the countenance an expression of low spirits or dejection,
so that an extremely slight contraction of these muscles would
be sufficient to betray this state of mind.


I may here mention a trifling observation, as it will serve to sum
up our present subject. An old lady with a comfortable but absorbed
expression sat nearly opposite to me in a railway carriage.
Whilst I was looking at her, I saw that her _depressores anguli
oris_ became very slightly, yet decidedly, contracted; but as her
countenance remained as placid as ever, I reflected how meaningless
was this contraction, and how easily one might be deceived.
The thought had hardly occurred to me when I saw that her eyes
suddenly became suffused with tears almost to overflowing,
and her whole countenance fell. There could now be no doubt
that some painful recollection, perhaps that of a long-lost child,
was passing through her mind. As soon as her sensorium
was thus affected, certain nerve-cells from long habit
instantly transmitted an order to all the respiratory muscles,
and to those round the mouth, to prepare for a fit of crying.
But the order was countermanded by the will, or rather
by a later acquired habit, and all the muscles were obedient,
excepting in a slight degree the _depressores anguli oris_.
The mouth was not even opened; the respiration was not hurried;
and no muscle was affected except those which draw down the corners
of the mouth.

As soon as the mouth of this lady began, involuntarily and unconsciously
on her part, to assume the proper form for a crying-fit, we may feel
almost sure that some nerve-influence would have been transmitted
through the long accustomed channels to the various respiratory muscles,
as well as to those round the eyes, and to the vaso-motor centre
which governs the supply of blood sent to the lacrymal glands.
Of this latter fact we have indeed clear evidence in her eyes becoming
slightly suffused with tears; and we can understand this, as the lacrymal
glands are less under the control of the will than the facial muscles.
No doubt there existed at the same time some tendency in the muscles round
the eyes at contract, as if for the sake of protecting them from being
gorged with blood, but this contraction was completely overmastered,
and her brow remained unruffled. Had the pyramidal, corrugator, and orbicular
muscles been as little obedient to the will, as they are in many persons,
they would have been slightly acted on; and then the central fasciae
of the frontal muscle would have contracted in antagonism, and her eyebrows
would have become oblique, with rectangular furrows on her forehead.
Her countenance would then have expressed still more plainly than it did
a state of dejection, or rather one of grief.

Through steps such as these we can understand how it is, that as soon
as some melancholy thought passes through the brain, there occurs
a just perceptible drawing down of the corners of the mouth,
or a slight raising up of the inner ends of the eyebrows, or both
movements combined, and immediately afterwards a slight suffusion
of tears. A thrill of nerve-force is transmitted along several
habitual channels, and produces an effect on any point where the will
has not acquired through long habit much power of interference.
The above actions may be considered as rudimental vestiges of the
screaming-fits, which are so frequent and prolonged during infancy.
In this case, as well as in many others, the links are indeed wonderful
which connect cause and effect in giving rise to various expressions
on the human countenance; and they explain to us the meaning of
certain movements, which we involuntarily and unconsciously perform,
whenever certain transitory emotions pass through our minds.
CHAPTER VIII.

Joy, HIGH SPIRITS, LOVE, TENDER FEELINGS, DEVOTION.

Laughter primarily the expression of joy--Ludicrous ideas--
Movements of the features during laughter--Nature of the
sound produced--The secretion of tears during loud laughter--
Gradation from loud laughter to gentle smiling--High spirits--
The expression of love--Tender feelings--Devotion.


JOY, when intense, leads to various purposeless movements--
to dancing about, clapping the hands, stamping, &c., and to loud laughter.
Laughter seems primarily to be the expression of mere joy or happiness.
We clearly see this in children at play, who are almost incessantly laughing.
With young persons past childhood, when they are in high spirits, there is
always much meaningless laughter. The laughter of the gods is described by
Homer as "the exuberance of their celestial joy after their daily banquet."
A man smiles--and smiling, as we shall see, graduates into laughter--
at meeting an old friend in the street, as he does at any trifling pleasure,
such as smelling a sweet perfume.[1] Laura Bridgman, from her blindness and
deafness, could not have acquired any expression through imitation, yet when
a letter from a beloved friend was communicated to her by gesture-language,
she "laughed and clapped her hands, and the colour mounted to her cheeks."
On other occasions she has been seen to stamp for joy.[2]


[1] Herbert Spencer, `Essays Scientific,' &c., 1858, p. 360.

Idiots and imbecile persons likewise afford good evidence that
laughter or smiling primarily expresses mere happiness or joy.
Dr. Crichton Browne, to whom, as on so many other occasions,
I am indebted for the results of his wide experience,
informs me that with idiots laughter is the most
prevalent and frequent of all the emotional expressions.
Many idiots are morose, passionate, restless, in a painful
state of mind, or utterly stolid, and these never laugh.
Others frequently laugh in a quite senseless manner.
Thus an idiot boy, incapable of speech, complained to Dr. Browne,
by the aid of signs, that another boy in the asylum had given
him a black eye; and this was accompanied by "explosions of
laughter and with his face covered with the broadest smiles."
There is another large class of idiots who are persistently
joyous and benign, and who are constantly laughing or smiling.[3]
Their countenances often exhibit a stereotyped smile;
their joyousness is increased, and they grin, chuckle, or giggle,
whenever food is placed before them, or when they are caressed,
are shown bright colours, or hear music. Some of them laugh more
than usual when they walk about, or attempt any muscular exertion.
The joyousness of most of these idiots cannot possibly
be associated, as Dr. Browne remarks, with any distinct ideas:
they simply feel pleasure, and express it by laughter or smiles.
With imbeciles rather higher in the scale, personal vanity
seems to be the commonest cause of laughter, and next to this,
pleasure arising from the approbation of their conduct.


[2] F. Lieber on the vocal sounds of L. Bridgman, `Smithsonian Contributions,'
1851, vol. ii. p. 6.

[3] See, also, Mr. Marshall, in Phil. Transact. 1864, p. 526.

With grown-up persons laughter is excited by causes considerably
different from those which suffice during childhood; but this remark
hardly applies to smiling. Laughter in this respect is analogous
with weeping, which with adults is almost confined to mental distress,
whilst with children it is excited by bodily pain or any suffering,
as well as by fear or rage. Many curious discussions have been
written on the causes of laughter with grown-up persons.
The subject is extremely complex. Something incongruous or unaccountable,
exciting surprise and some sense of superiority in the laugher,
who must be in a happy frame of mind, seems to be the commonest
cause.[4] The circumstances must not be of a momentous nature:
no poor man would laugh or smile on suddenly hearing that a large
fortune had been bequeathed to him. If the mind is strongly
excited by pleasurable feelings, and any little unexpected event
or thought occurs, then, as Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks,[5] "a large
amount of nervous energy, instead of being allowed to expend itself
in producing an equivalent amount of the new thoughts and emotion
which were nascent, is suddenly checked in its flow." . . . "The
excess must discharge itself in some other direction, and there
results an efflux through the motor nerves to various classes of
the muscles, producing the half-convulsive actions we term laughter."
An observation, bearing on this point, was made by a correspondent
during the recent siege of Paris, namely, that the German soldiers.
after strong excitement from exposure to extreme danger, were particularly
apt to burst out into loud laughter at the smallest joke.
So again when young children are just beginning to cry,
an unexpected event will sometimes suddenly turn their crying
into laughter, which apparently serves equally well to expend
their superfluous nervous energy.

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