Darwinism stated by Darwin himself · Charles Darwin
VOLUNTARY POWER OVER THE GRIEF-MUSCLES.
The power to bring the grief-muscles freely into play appears to be hereditary, like almost every other human faculty. A lady belonging to a family famous for having produced an extraordinary number of great actors and actresses, and who can herself give this expression “with singular precision,” told Dr. Crichton Browne that all her family had possessed the power in a remarkable degree. The same hereditary tendency is said to have extended, as I likewise hear from Dr. Browne, to the last descendant of the family, which gave rise to Sir Walter Scott’s novel of “Red Gauntlet”; but the hero is described as contracting his forehead into a horseshoe mark from any strong emotion. I have also seen a young woman whose forehead seemed almost habitually thus contracted, independently of any emotion being at the time felt. The grief-muscles are not very frequently brought into play; and, as the action is often momentary, it easily escapes observation. Although the expression, when observed, is universally and instantly recognized as that of grief or anxiety, yet not one person out of a thousand who has never studied the subject is able to say precisely what change passes over the sufferer’s face. Hence probably it is that this expression is not even alluded to, as far as I have noticed, in any work of fiction, with the exception of “Red Gauntlet” and of one other novel; and the authoress of the latter, as I am informed, belongs to the famous family of actors just alluded to; so that her attention may have been specially called to the subject.
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