But the pyramidal muscles seem
to be less under the command of the will than the other related muscles;
and if they be well developed, their contraction can be checked only by
the antagonistic contraction of the central fasciae of the frontal muscle.
The result which necessarily follows, if these fasciae contract energetically,
is the oblique drawing up of the eyebrows, the puckering of their inner ends,
and the formation of rectangular furrows on the middle of the forehead.
As children and women cry much more freely than men, and as grown-up
persons of both sexes rarely weep except from mental distress, we can
understand why the grief-muscles are more frequently seen in action,
as I believe to be the case, with children and women than with men;
and with adults of both sexes from mental distress alone. In some of
the cases before recorded, as in that of the poor Dhangar woman and of
the Hindustani man, the action of the grief-muscles was quickly followed
by bitter weeping. In all cases of distress, whether great or small,
our brains tend through long habit to send an order to certain muscles
to contract, as if we were still infants on the point of screaming out;
but this order we, by the wondrous power of the will, and through habit,
are able partially to counteract; although this is effected unconsciously,
as far as the means of counteraction are concerned.
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