MILES OF SMILES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 90, 10 January 1935, Page 6

MILES OF SMILES

Character in the Face

There are miles and miles of smiles, and it is far easier to understand a smile than to describe it, states a writer in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” For instance, we can all recognise the cynical smile, the contemptuous, and envious smile, the sharklsh smile, apd the sheepish simper, but description beggars us.

A smile is a movement of the orbicularis oris muscle. It lengthens the lips and generally turns them outward, showing a larger lip surface. Mirth draws the lips up at the corners; a silly smile draws them up too much; a friendly smile elongates both lips equally, but draws the corners neither up nor down; a loving smile fills out the lower lip most; a contemptuous smile shoots out the upper lip. No smile that draws the lipcorners down is good. The smiles of treachery, cunning, envy, jealousy, all draw the corners down; while the smiles of cruelty and selfishness are accompanied by in-draw of lips, making them a thin, curved line. • A real smile lights up the whole face, springs into the eyes, smoothes out the eyebrows, ripples down the cheek, expands the lips, draws up the chin, enlarges the whole body, and lightens every movement. It is the reverse of a frown, which is a sign of pain, and contracts and draws dowji every feature. A smile is a sign of pleasure, and pleasure expands, conducing to health and pleasure in ourselves and others. Frowns and harsh tones tend to make life less worth living for all Carlyle speaks plainly on the morals of laughter. Describing the professor's laugh in Sartor Resartns, he says: “Gradually a light kindled in our professor’s eyes and face—a beaming, mantling, loveliest light; through those murky features, a radiant ever-young Apollo looked; and he burst forth like the neighing of ail Tattersall’s —tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, foot clutched into the air—loud long-continued, incontrollable, a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head to heel.” How much lies in laughter, the cipher-key wherewith to decipher the whole man.

Some wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter. Very few can laugh real laughter, but only sniff and titter, snigger from the throat, or produce some whiffling', husky cachlnnation. as i£ laughing through wool. The man who cannot laugh is not only lit for treason, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is already a treason and stratagem. However well the tongue and face may be schooled to dissemble and preserve their master’s secrets, the laugh will contradict. One of the greatest students of this subject has been the artist Louis Watne, whose studies of cats are world famous for the exquisite delicacy of expression, especially touching smiles.