The act of frowning--Reflection with an effort, or with the perception of something difficult or disagreeable--Abstracted meditation--Ill-temper--Moroseness--Obstinacy Sulkiness and pouting--Decision or determination--The firm closure of the mouth.
THE corrugators, by their contraction, lower the eyebrows and bring them together, producing vertical furrows on the forehead--that is, a frown.
Sir C. Bell, who erroneously thought that the corrugator was peculiar to man, ranks it as "the most remarkable muscle of the human face.
It knits the eyebrows with an energetic effort, which unaccountably, but irresistibly, conveys the idea of mind." Or, as he elsewhere says, "when the eyebrows are knit, energy of mind is apparent, and there is the mingling of thought and emotion with the savage and brutal rage of the mere animal."[1] There is much truth in these remarks, but hardly the whole truth. Dr. Duchenne has called the corrugator the muscle of reflection;[2] but this name, without some limitation, cannot be considered as quite correct.
[1] `Anatomy of Expression,' pp. 137, 139. It is not surprising that the corrugators should have become much more developed in man than in the anthropoid apes; for they are brought into incessant action by him under various circumstances, and will have been strengthened and modified by the inherited effects of use.
We have seen how important a part they play, together with the orbiculares, in protecting the eyes from being too much gorged with blood during violent expiratory movements.
When the eyes are closed as quickly and as forcibly as possible, to save them from being injured by a blow, the corrugators contract.
With savages or other men whose heads are uncovered, the eyebrows are continually lowered and contracted to serve as a shade against a too strong light; and this is effected partly by the corrugators.
This movement would have been more especially serviceable to man, as soon as his early progenitors held their heads erect.
Lastly, Prof. Donders believes (`Archives of Medicine,' ed.by L. Beale, 1870, vol. v. p. 34), that the corrugators are brought into action in causing the eyeball to advance in accommodation for proximity in vision.
A man may be absorbed in the deepest thought, and his brow will remain smooth until he encounters some obstacle in his train of reasoning, or is interrupted by some disturbance, and then a frown passes like a shadow over his brow.
A half-starved man may think intently how to obtain food, but he probably will not frown unless he encounters either in thought or action some difficulty, or finds the food when obtained nauseous.
I have noticed that almost everyone instantly frowns if he perceives a strange or bad taste in what he is eating.
I asked several persons, without explaining my object, to listen intently to a very gentle tapping sound, the nature and source of which they all perfectly knew, and not one frowned;but a man who joined us, and who could not conceive what we were all doing in profound silence, when asked to listen, frowned much, though not in an ill-temper, and said he could not in the least understand what we all wanted. Dr. Piderit[3] who has published remarks to the same effect, adds that stammerers generally frown in speaking, and that a man in doing even so trifling a thing as pulling on a boot, frowns if he finds it too tight.
Some persons are such habitual frowners, that the mere effort of speaking almost always causes their brows to contract.
[2] `Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine,' Album, Legende iii.
[3] `Mimik und Physiognomik,' s. 46.
Men of all races frown when they are in any way perplexed in thought, as I infer from the answers which I have received to my queries; but I framed them badly, confounding absorbed meditation with perplexed reflection.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the Australians, Malays, Hindoos, and Kafirs of South Africa frown, when they are puzzled. Dobritzhoffer remarks that the Guaranies of South America on like occasions knit their brows.[4]
From these considerations, we may conclude that frowning is not the expression of simple reflection, however profound, or of attention, however close, but of something difficult or displeasing encountered in a train of thought or in action.
Deep reflection can, however, seldom be long carried on without some difficulty, so that it will generally be accompanied by a frown.