The Portable Lavater: Never judge a book by its forehead

1. Vladimir Putin, Russian President.

- The forehead: “This is the part,” our book reads, “that truly reveals one’s intelligence.” Putin’s forehead can be described, I guess, as “lightly arched” and “with no marked angle”—then, it denotes “niceness”. Is it “open and plain”? Then it is a sign of “inner peace”. But when wrinkled, as in Putin’s case, it is the “mark of the tempest of passions and of a restless mind.” Wrinkled at the junction of the nose, it tells of a “tough and insensible character.”

- The eyebrows: when horizontal, they are the signs of “virility and strength”; and when partly horizontal and partly bowed, they mean “energy and vitality.”

- The mouth: “It plays the most important part in physiognomy,” reads our book, “as it almost inevitably expresses the state of someone’s mind.” Is Putin’s mouth “often closed, with pursed lips”? That would make him a “greedy man”. But if his mouth is “pursed with invisible corners,” it means he is “a very industrious man, friend of order of cleanliness.”