Many years ago a Scottish medical
man, Dr. Clouston, a mad-doctor as they call him there, or what we
should call an asylum physician (the most eminent one in Scotland),
visited this country, and said something that has remained in my memory
ever since. "You Americans," he said, "wear too much expression on your
faces. You are living like an army with all its reserves engaged in
action. The duller countenances of the British population betoken a
better scheme of life. They suggest stores of reserved nervous force to
fall back upon, if any occasion should arise that requires it. This
inexcitability, this presence at all times of power not used, I regard,"
continued Dr. Clouston, "as the great safeguard of our British people.
The other thing in you gives me a sense of insecurity, and you ought
somehow to tone yourselves down. You really do carry too much
expression, you take too intensely the trivial moments of life."
Now Dr. Clouston is a trained reader of the secrets of the soul as
expressed upon the countenance, and the observation of his which I quote
seems to me to mean a great deal.
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