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Elsie Venner by Oliver Wendell Holmes
page 11 of 456 (02%)
mark,--first favorite of his year, as they say of the Derby colts. There
are in every class half a dozen bright faces to which the teacher
naturally, directs his discourse, and by the intermediation of whose
attention he seems to hold that of the mass of listeners. Among these
some one is pretty sure to take the lead, by virtue of a personal
magnetism, or some peculiarity of expression, which places the face in
quick sympathetic relations with the lecturer. This was a young man with
such a face; and I found,--for you have guessed that I was the
"Professor" above-mentioned,--that, when there was anything difficult to
be explained, or when I was bringing out some favorite illustration of a
nice point, (as, for instance; when I compared the cell-growth, by which
Nature builds up a plant or an animal, to the glassblower's similar mode
of beginning,--always with a hollow sphere, or vesicle, whatever he is
going to make,) I naturally looked in his face and gauged my success by
its expression.

It was a handsome face,--a little too pale, perhaps, and would have borne
something more of fulness without becoming heavy. I put the organization
to which it belongs in Section B of Class 1 of my Anglo-American
Anthropology (unpublished). The jaw in this section is but slightly
narrowed,--just enough to make the width of the forehead tell more
decidedly. The moustache often grows vigorously, but the whiskers are
thin. The skin is like that of Jacob, rather than like Esau's. One
string of the animal nature has been taken away, but this gives only a
greater predominance to the intellectual chords. To see just how the
vital energy has been toned down, you must contrast one of this section
with a specimen of Section A of the same class,--say, for instance, one
of the old-fashioned, full-whiskered, red-faced, roaring, big Commodores
of the last generation, whom you remember, at least by their portraits,
in ruffled shirts, looking as hearty as butchers and as plucky as
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