CHANGING FACES
AFRIEND of mine is in the act of changing his face. Its whole hirsute arrangement has been trans- formed, or, rather, is in the process of being transformed. Had the change been completed I doubt if I should have recognized. him, for the moustache and whiskers he is 'growing make him look an altogether different type of Man. But fortunately I caught him half-way, " and noticed the familiar friendly face smiling through the strange growths of hair. In a week or two the face I have known will have completely disappeared, and I shall have to accustom myself to an entirely different one. It is true that the eyes, nose and forehead remain the same, but these features arc actually less important and less commanding than one would imagine. Framed differ- ' ently, even they seem to change. But after the first shock of surprise has passed, it is difficult to refuse one's sympathy to such an innovator. There is no reason why we should always look the same, and, indeed, there arc many reasons why we should try to change our appearance from time to time. In a world that is rapidly becoming uniform in all things, where all differences of dress, amusements, social customs, and habits of thought are quickly disappearing, variety, wherever it can be intro- duced, is not only to be tolerated, but to be encouraged. Moreover, now that women have all decided that they wish to look like either fifth-form boys or male imperson- atom from the halls, and are moving rapidly towards monotony, it is the duty of my sex to achieve what variety it can. And the whisker is one of its opportunities.
Already we have moved away from any kind of uni- formity. We wear our hair longish or shortish, just as we please. Clean-shaven faces, moustaches, beards of all shapes, and the less luxuriant side-whisker are all common with us. Other times would seem to have followed one hirsute fashion slavishly. All the Eliza- bethans appear to have worn short-pointed beards, just as all the eighteenth-century men of the middle and upper classes were clean-shaven and wore wigs. You cannot mistake the typical Regency face with its longish thick curled hair and short side-whiskers. But it is doubtful if posterity will be able to recognize a typical face of our time, which allows so much liberty in trimming and shaving. Perhaps the most characteristic face we have is that of the subaltern type, short well-brushed hair and the clipped Chaplin moustache--a clean, serviceable but dull sort. of face, in my opinion. But variety is becoming more and more common with us. The young men are beginning to experiment, and some of them, I notice, arc returning to the really massive beards of the 'sixties and 'seventies, beards that suggest a revival of Trilby. I find some of these beards decidedly piquant ; either they seem startlingly false or they appear to have a real existence but one independent of that of their wearer, with whom they have merely consented to walk abroad for a day or two. Indeed, I am willing to applaud every experiment in whiskers so long as it stops short of those horrors of the 'forties and 'fifties, the black curling whiskers running from ear to ear underneath the chin, that you may see in the illustrations to the earlier Dickens and Thaekeray novels. I can well believe that Mr. Mantalini and Sir Mulberry Hawk were so incredibly be-whiskered, but then I cannot believe in the reality of such people. That real human beings should present such faces to the world is astounding. I cannot bring myself to admit that behind such whiskers there were all the familiar dreams and hopes and fears of a fellow-creature.
I do not, I repeat, with liold my sympathy from my friend who is so busy changing his face, but it does seem to raise an ethical question of some importance. Has he any right to change his face ? Is it for him, and fot him alone, to decide that he shall look like another type of person in future ? Surely not. A man's face is not really his own property, to do what he likes with, but that of his wife, his mother, his children, his friends and relatives. It is they who have to. live with it, to sec it at breakfast, to talk to it, to remark its significant creases. The man himself merely wears it. If, some morning while I was descending to the breakfast table, my features were to be altogether transformed and I moved through the rest of the day with aubtirn curls, a inciting brown eye, an exquisite aquiline nose and the mouth of a young Byron, I should know nothing about it until some friend I greeted failed to recognize me. Inside, I take it, these new features would feel no different from the ones, the vastly inferior ones, I wear now. If whiskers were suddenly thrust upon me, I should probably feel them, for I remember that once during the War I wore a mous- tache for a few weeks and found that it was always in the way. But after a time, I imagine, one would become accustomed to the bushiest growths, and would by no means be always feeling as one would look, namely, like a creature peering through thick undergrowth. It is Clearly a matter .ofindifference to a man himself what kind of face he wears. Only the effect it has upon other people is of any impbrtance. Therefore, it follows that the people who are most often in his company have more interest in the matter than he has himself.
This being so; he has no right to make a change, par- ticularly an important change, without their permission. If the face is to be redecOrated, it should be their right to choose the scheme of decoration. It is certain that, right or no right, wives will insist upon having some say in the Matter, but I think that a man contemplating such changes should also consult his friends. Otherwise, it appears to me, they are at liberty to discontinue the friendship. Some time ago, a friend of Mine departed' for a' holiday in one of. the .Balearic looking, as always, likera typieal young professional man of our tune,. ClipPed, spruce, clean-shaven. But that face, with which I had sworn friendship, never returned. He left it on the island and brought back the face of a black and bearded Levantine pirate, with which he expected me to be friendly at once. This other friend, whom I have caught in the very act of changing faces; will very shortly look like a youngish family solicitor (who rides to hounds) of the 'eighties, and yet he will expect me to be just as familiar and at case with him as I was before. I will do much for a friend, and I am, as I have said, in favour of variety, but these capricious gentlemen. seem to Me to expect too much. I think they forget their obligations. I propose that the next one, before he grows or shaves a single hair,•should call a meeting of his acquaintances, put before them his own ideas, invite their criticisms and suggestions, and end, if necessary, with some voting. The admirable Mr. Clarkson would, of course, be in attendance.
J. B. PRIESTLEY.
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