_Helplessness, Impotence: Shrugging the shoulders_.--When a man wishes
to show that he cannot do something, or prevent something being done,
he often raises with a quick movement both shoulders. At the same time,
if the whole gesture is completed, he bends his elbows closely inwards,
raises his open hands, turning them outwards, with the fingers separated.
The head is often thrown a little on one side; the eyebrows are elevated,
and this causes wrinkles across the forehead. The mouth is generally opened.
I may mention, in order to show how unconsciously the features are thus
acted on, that though I had often intentionally shrugged my shoulders
to observe how my arms were placed, I was not at all aware that my eyebrows
were raised and mouth opened, until I looked at myself in a glass;
and since then I have noticed the same movements in the faces of others.
In the accompanying Plate VI., figs. 3 and 4, Mr. Rejlander has successfully
acted the gesture of shrugging the shoulders.
[12] Gratiolet (De la Phys. p. 351) makes this remark,
and has some good observations on the expression of pride.
See Sir C. Bell (`Anatomy of Expression,' p.
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