LOOKS AND CHARACTER.
MANY people have no memory at all for faces. They see them apparently quite clearly, but they receive no lasting impression whatever. Now and then they pro- nounce a verdict about some one's appearance, but unless they are looking straight at him or her they can bring no evidence in support of what they say. Are such people necessarily bad judges of character or slow judges P Theo- retically they ought to be, but actually we doubt if they are. Poor people can never describe a face, and not un- commonly confuse persons who have but the most super- ficial likeness to each other. Almost all the uneducated fail entirely to characterize looks. They cannot guess age with any accuracy, and, so far as outward appearance goes, they show observation about nothing unless it is social posi- tion, about which they are seldom deceived. On the other hand they are not bad judges of character.
Suddenly brought face to face with a portrait of some one belonging to the past, some one with whose character we are historically familiar, we not unusually get something of a shock. We feel something akin to the bewilderment which seizes upon us when our favourite old novels come out with modern illustrations. We are quite certain that the friends with whom we have been so often in spiritual company were not like that. Have we, as a rule, any clear mental picture of their features P As a rule not. Who could say offhand if " Emma " had fair hair or dark, and what lover of, say, Sir Thomas Browne could tell you without thought what he looked like P Yet with both these characters our mental intimacy seems to lack nothing. Moreover, no two people who agree about their characters will be likely to agree about their probable appearance. It would seem from all this as though features indicate character less definitely than we are apt to imagine.
Yet how difficult it is to get over the notion that we know more of a man if we know his features than if we have studied his "dossier," and that, though we may have no very high opinion, when we come to look back on past mistakes, of the permanent value of our first impressions. All the same, when it is necessary to us to trust our judgment, when there is much which must be risked, we are never easy until we have seen the person upon whom so much depends.
Not that we ignore the fact that the essence of charm is to overthrow judgment; every one knows that to his cost or his gain, as the case may be. When we have seen the person about whom it is our duty or our desire to form an opinion and about whom we know much from hearsay or on paper, we may receive a great light on his or her character, or we may be greatly distracted from the truth. Anyhow, we are sure in a measure to revise our estimate. The only thing we are quite sure to know is whether the person is inimical or attractive to us personally. How far we shall be able from that certainty to infer his character will largely depend upon how well we know ourselves.
Good looks, actual correctness of feature and proportion, are in every one's favour, probably too much so. Good- looking people have no way to make up before they begin. To this rule there is only one exception. The correctness of an expressionless face is against its owner with most intelligent people. This is true whether its mask- like inanition be voluntary or no. The blankness cultivated by certain actors and by certain well-bred men and women who have put off all expression but one of hauteur is hardly less disagreeable than the blankness born upon the features of the dullard. Significant ugliness, while it is a mis- fortune to a woman, probably never stood in any man's way unless when be was making love, and then not for long. Insignificance of appearance is a terrible handicap, and the worst of stumbling blocks to the student of character. It ought, of course, to rule appearance out of court so far as the insignificant-looking perion is concerned. It may be found in conjunction with great qualities, and has been proved to do so just often enough to be very puzzling. Occasionally able people have no look of ability, and do look very shy and ill at ease—peculiarities which are hardly judged by those belonging to the classes in which they are least often seen—i.e., the upper and the lower. Too much emotion showing in a face, though an attractive, is almost always a very weak sign. A man should not wear his heart in his face any more than upon his sleeve. No doubt it often gives one pleasure to see it there, because the preliminaries of acquaintance and of friendship or even of character study are, as a rule, so dull. We like to be precipitated into the midst of the plot of character as it were, but in these circumstances it is seldom one worth thinking of. In women this emotionalism often constitutes a charm, and charm, as we have said, destroys judgment. We do not reason but succumb.
Faces which express a single quality permanently to the exclusion of all others never have any charm. " A strong face," we say, and are perhaps attracted, but the attraction goes off. It is always strong, and soon we find it determined, and then obstinate, and then a bore, and we want to look at some one else. Benevolent-looking people are very well to sit opposite in a railway carriage, but on longer acquaintance their ex- pression becomes fatuous. A humorous face must be con- stantly out of tune with its surroundings, and a sad face, unless it is oldish and the sadness comes of the lines of time and the scars of experience, is very mawkish. There is a predominant expression often found in connexion with feminine beauty, which might perhaps be considered as an exception to what we have been saying. It is a per- manent look of sudden fear, a look of having been startled. It appears to have no meaning whatever, but it often captivates the beholder by giving him a subtle sense that he has made an impression and does not count for nothing in her eyes. Like all expressions which should be fleeting and are stereotyped, it ceases to please.
There is a certain pleasure in tracing a known character in unlikely features. Very odd looks give pleasure vary often to those who know them well. They suggest a secret and put the student familiar with the solution of the problem into the position of a providence to whom the secrets of hearts are revealed. Certain great protraits both suggest and solve a problem. The painter sets us looking for kindness in fierce eyes, for a soul in a very fleshly exterior, and for humour in heaviness, and leaves us believing that we have guessed what in reality the painter has told us.
Some faces, of course, remain absolute problems for ever. They contradict the character altogether. Are they inherited from one ancestor while the soul comes from another P Do they represent the sub-conscious self, or do they testify to some extraordinary mistake made at the embodiment of the entity P It is not surprising that coarse features and a look of brutality should go sometimes with a kind heart and a refined mind, and imperfectly chiselled faces are sure to give a course impression at first sight. The strange thing is that you get now and then a look of intelligence with a shallow- ness amounting to stupidity, and in certain women a look of shining geniality screening a callous and almost cruel disposition.
It is not possible to judge very much of children from their looks, though they attract the spectator to watch them more than their elders do partly because their average of beauty is higher. It is a fearful misfortune to a child to be ugly—luckily ugly children are rare. Children's faces provoke one to look forward and lead one into the wide region of romance and prophecy rather than the by-paths of analysis. Now and then you find among them a finished face, a face which shows a formed character. Most often we see it in little girls. They have the charm of little roses, not the charm of buds. They lack the charm of the unknown; on the other hand all sinister possibility is ruled out. We know that they will always be charming and will not open in a few years to show themselves cankered. Spiritually their fate is sealed their fortune told, and we know that it is very good.
Among grown-up people it is not the readable face which has the most charm. Virtue written in plain letters does not spell fascination. Wo look at people's faces largely that we may know their minds. It is dull to see nothing; almost as dull to see everything. All perfectly charming faces are imperfectly decipherable and leave one quite certain of nothing but sympathy.
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