University of Virginia Library

20. LETTER XX.

My room-mate called a day or two since on General
Bertrand, and yesterday he returned the visit, and
spent an hour at our lodgings. He talked of Napoleon
with difficulty, and became very much affected
when my friend made some inquiries about the safety
of the body at St. Helena. The inquiry was suggested
by some notice we had seen in the papers of
an attempt to rob the tomb of Washington. The
general said that the vault was fifteen feet deep, and
covered by a slab that could not be moved without
machinery. He told us that Madame Bertrand had
many mementoes of the emperor, which she would be
happy to show us, and we promised to visit him.

At a party, a night or two since, I fell into conversation
with an English lady, who had lived several years
in Dublin, and was an intimate friend of Lady Morgan.
She was an uncommonly fine woman, both in
appearance and conversational powers, and told me
many anecdotes of the authoress, defending her from
all the charges usually made against her, except that
of vanity, which she allowed. I received, on the whole,
the impression that Lady Morgan's goodness of heart
was more than an offset to her certainly very innocent
weaknesses. My companion was much amused at an
American's asking after the “fender in Kildare street;”
though she half withdrew her cordiality when I told
her I knew the countryman of mine who wrote the
account of Lady Morgan, of which she complains so
bitterly in the “Book of the Boudoir.” It was this
lady with whom the fair authoress “dined in the
Chaussee d'Antin,” so much to her satisfaction.

While we were conversing, the lady's husband came
up, and finding I was an American, made some inquiries
about the progress of phrenology on the other
side of the water. Like most enthusiasts in the science,
his own head was a remarkably beautiful one;
and I soon found that he was the bosom friend of Dr.
Spurzheim, to whom he offered to introduce me. We
made an engagement for the next day, and the party
separated.

My new acquaintance called on me the next morning,
according to appointment, and we went together
to Dr. Spurzheim's residence. The passage at the
entrance was lined with cases, in which stood plaster
casts of the heads of distinguished men, orators, poets,
musicians — each class on its particular shelf —
making altogether a most ghastly company. The
doctor received my companion with great cordiality,
addressing him in French, and changing to very good
German-English when he made any observation to
me. He is a tall, large-boned man, and resembles
Harding, the American artist, very strikingly. His
head is finely marked; his features are bold, with
rather a German look; and his voice is particularly
winning, and changes its modulations, in argument,
from the deep, earnest tone of a man, to an almost
child like softness. The conversation soon turned
upon America, and the doctor expressed, in ardent
terms, his desire to visit the United States, and said he
had thought of accomplishing it the coming summer.
He spoke of Dr. Channing — said he had read all his
works with avidity and delight, and considered him one
of the clearest and most expausive minds of the age.
If Dr. Channing had not strong developments of the
organs of ideality and benevolence, he said, he should
doubt his theory more than he had ever found reason
to. He knew Webster and Professor Silliman by
reputation, and seemed to be familiar with our country,
as few men in Europe are. One naturally, on meeting
a distinguished phrenologist, wishes to have his
own developments pronounced upon; but I had
warned by my friend that Dr. Spurzheim refused
examinations as a general principle, not wishing to deceive
people, and unwilling to run the risk of offending
them. After a half-hour's conversation, however
came across the room, and putting his hands
my thick masses of hair, felt my head closely all over,
and mentioned at once a quality, which, right or wrong,
has given a tendency to all my pursuits in life. As
he knew absolutely nothing of me, and the gentleman
who introduced me knew no more, I was a little
startled. The doctor then requested me to submit to
the operation of having a cast taken of my head, an
offer which was too kind and particular to be declined;
and, appointing an hour to be at his rooms the following
day, we left him.

I was there again at twelve the morning after, and
found De Potter (the Belgian patriot) and Dr. Bowring,
with the phrenologist, waiting to undergo the
same operation. The preparations looked very formidable.
A frame, of the length of the human body,
lay in the middle of the room, with a wooden bowl to
receive the head, a mattress, and a long white dress to
prevent stain to the clothes. As I was the youngest,
I took my turn first. It was very like a preparation
for being beheaded. My neck was bared, my hair cut,
and the long white dress put on. The back of the
head is taken first; and, as I was only immersed up to
the ears in the liquid plaster, this was not very alarming.
The second part, however, demanded more
patience. My head was put once more into the stiffened
mould of the first half, and as soon as I could
get my features composed I was ordered to shut my
eyes; my hair was oiled and laid smooth, and the
liquid plaster poured slowly over my mouth, eyes, and
forehead, till I was cased completely in a stiffening
mask. The material was then poured on thickly, till
the mask was two or three inches thick, and the voices
of those standing over me were scarcely audible. I
breathed prettily freely through the two small orifices
at my nose; but the dangerous experiment of Mademoiselle
Sontag, who was nearly smothered in the
same operation, came across my mind rather vividly;
and it seemed to me that the doctor handled the plaster
quite too ungingerly, when he came to mould about
my nostrils. After a half hour's imprisonment, the
plaster became sufficiently hardened, and the thread
which was laid upon my face was drawn through, dividing
the mask into two parts. It was then gradually
removed, pulling very tenaciously upon my eyelashes
and eyebrows, and leaving all the cavities of my face
filled with particles of lime. The process is a tribute
to vanity, which one would not be willing to pay very
often.

I looked on at Dr. Bowring's incarceration with no
great feeling of relief. It is rather worse to see than
to experience, I think. The poet is a nervous man;
and as long as the muscles of his face were visible, his
lips, eyelids, and mouth, were quivering so violently
that I scarcely believed it would be possible to
impression of them. He has a beautiful face for a
scholar — clear, well-cut, finished features, expressive
of great purity of thought; and a forehead of noble
amplitude, white and polished as marble. His hair is
black and curling (indicating in most cases, Dr. Spurzheim
remarked, activity of mind), and forms a classical
relief to his handsome temples. Altogether, his
head would look well in a picture, though his ordinary
and ungraceful dress, and quick, bustling manner,
rather destroy the effect of it in society.

De Potter is one of the noblest-looking men I ever
saw. He is quite bald, with a broad, ample, majestic
head, the very model of dignity and intellect. De

Spurzheim considers his head one of the most extraordinary
he has met. Firmness is the great development
of its organs. His tone and manner are calm
and very impressive, and he looks made for great occasions
— a man stamped with the superiority which
others acknowledge when circumstances demand it.
He employs himself in literary pursuits at Paris, and
has just published a pamphlet on “the manner of
conducting a revolution, so that no after-revolution
shall be necessary.” I have translated the title awkwardly,
but that is the subject.

I have since heard Dr. Spurzheim lecture twice, and
have been with him to a meeting of the “Anthropological
society” (of which he is the president and De
Potter the secretary), where I witnessed the dissection
of the human brain. It was a most interesting and
satisfactory experiment, as an illustration of phrenology.
David the sculptor is a member of the society,
and was present. He looks more like a soldier
than an artist, however — wearing the cross of the
legion of honor, with a military frock coat, and an
erect, stern, military carriage. Spurzheim lectures in
a free, easy, unconstrained style, with occasionally a
little humor, and draws his arguments from admitted
facts only. Nothing could be more reasonable than
his premises, and nothing more like an axiom than
the results, as far as I have heard him. At any rate,
true or false, his theory is one of extreme interest,
and no time can be wasted in examining it; for it is
the study of man, and therefore the most important
of studies.

I have had several long conversations with Dr.
Spurzheim about America, and have at last obtained
his positive assurance that he would visit it. He
gave me permission this morning to say (what I am
sure all lovers of knowledge will be pleased to hear)
that he should sail for New York in the course of the
ensuing summer, and pass a year or more in lecturing
and travelling in the United States. He is a man to
obtain the immediate confidence and respect of a people
like ours, of the highest moral worth, and the
most candid and open mind. I hope, my dear M.
and F., that you will make our paper a vehicle for any
information he may wish to convey to the public, and
that you and all our friends will receive him with the
warmth and respect due to his reputation and worth.
If he arrive in August, as he anticipates, he proposes
to pass a month or so at New Haven, and then to proceed
to Boston, to commence his tour at the North.

P.S. — As I shall leave Paris shortly, you may expect
but one or two letters more from this metropolis. I
shall, however, as I extend my travels, find a greater
variety of materials for my future communications.