CASUAL COMMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 19794, 18 February 1928, Page 2

CASUAL COMMENTS

FACES [By Leo Fanning.] There arc so many ways of writing a column about faces, or a book, or a library, or several libraries, that it is not easy to compress the subject into 1.200 words or so. Therefore this article will not be an authoritative treatise on faces, but merely a superficial survey' of the most studied thing in the world—the one most talked about and most written about. * * * * What is a face? When is a face not a face? How much face does Mature give us, and how much do we add ourselves? For instance, consider Charlie Chaplin’s face, which is his fortune. The floppy, baggy trousers, the big boots, the little cane, and the buttered bowler may help him, but they are mere adjuncts to the face, which is the thing that draws the people’s money (tax extra). And the joke pf the thing is that the face it, not Charlie’s at all—not the one which be owned at birth. It is something he has built. With his “ movie ” face undone or unmade —the little false “ mou ” and the other makeup swept away—the ordinary Chaplin is no more like the stage Chaplin than a beefsteak is like a Bath bun. Perhaps the real Chaplin is secretly ashamed of the other one whose face piles up the pyramids of dollars. mm** Altogether Chaplin has three faces—the stage one and the other two, the same as we all have—the face which we see ourselves and the face seen by the world at large. It is well known, of course, that uo man ever sees his own face—and still less does a woman see hers. A man looks in a glass (only when ho has to), and beholds more or less hair, eyes, nose,_ mouth, cheeks, chin, and ears. He believes these things are his face. They are not—at least, not the face as seen by everybody else. As the face seen by others must be the real one, it follows, us Euclid would or should say, that the face seen by the owner is not the real one. What is it, then ? * * * + Simpkins, who sells cocoa and tapioca to help him with his instalments on the used car, looks a simpleton to his friends and enemies—no, only to his friends, for such a man hath no enemies, though he larkcth not critics. His features, individually and collectively, have often been_the raw material of crude jests. But it is a very different Simpkins that smirks at Simpkins from the mirror. “It’s lucky we have mirrors to tell us the truth,” thinks Simpkins. His nose loses its snubness, his receding chin has dignity and strength, and his ears (which the vulgar have derided as flappers) do not stick out at all—certainly not more than they should. Simpkins takes another look at himself—a good long look—and leaves the glass satisfied that the old at his face in bars and cars' have their source in envy or malice. * * * * The case of Simpkins is a reminder that much of tho world’s humor is based on faces. They are the foundation of much of the greatness of Dickens. What would W. W. .Jacobs do without them ? And ‘ Punch ’ P ' • * + * Unhappy is the_ woman—fortunately rare—who is conscious of a facial flaw, such as nose 100 long or too short, an upper or lower lip out of plumb, cheeks too bulged, too pleated, or too hollow. A woman of intelligence—particularly one of charm, which springs from the inner charmery—can always make the world forget these defects—or not even see them at all. What is a little tissue —too much or not enough—to a woman who has the winning way? And what woman has not the way if she sets her mind and heart to it? ! *** * j “My face is my fortune,” many a woman can say, or think, fairly and squarely; hut faces, in general, are mostly fortunes for manufacturers of things for the vanity hag, soap, and razors. The inventor of something new for the face—something that catches on —will soon be able to lend money to bis friends. • • * * A magnate of the film world—which has been termed “ reel life ” —spent some weeks in Australia last year. He peered keenly at lawyers, doctors, politicians. and others, and he remarked eventually that lie had seen only two faces suitable for the screen. One belonged to a journalist—a, big surprise. Ho must have been a recent recruit. Ho could not get a film face in Australian journalism. If he began with one. he would, or should, soon lose it. Probably that journalist, has long since been sacked to his advantage, and his face may he earning enough money now to make a city editor’s salary look like a tip for a hell hoy. » * * • That magnate dismissed Australia’s women with a gesture; nothing doing. This failure of the women from the filming viewpoint and tho mention of only two men (probably immigrants) are all to Australia’s credit. People pay money, cheerfully, to see film faces in a theatre, and would pay money, equally cheerfully, to miss seeing them anywhere else. * * * * Can you read your friends’ faces? Don’t. Take them as you find them. “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face,” Shakespeare made Macbeth say, but in the same play, of course, ho countered that with Lady Macbeth’s remark: “Your face, ray lord, is as a book where men may read strange matters ” (or words to that effect). So there you are. « * ■*> * The Chinese, in the course of thousands of years, have learned how to make masks of their faces. They had to. In days when a mandarin and a headman rushed about, scanning faces for signs of guilt, tho public necessarily learned how to look more innocent than the heroine of a melodrama. Even ordinary business or draw-poker or bridge requires the face to refrain from making a fool of itself and its owner. * * * * Man, the lord of the fowl and the brute, includes in his endowment all the laces of the lower animals—the rabbit, the sheep (especially the merino), the camel, the lion, the cat, tho dog, the monkey, the eagle, the seagull, the parrot, the cod, and the gurnet. What face among all these creatures can he most like a human being’s? “The monkey,” you say, impetuously. Quite wrong. The highest marks go to the parrot. Satisfy yourself by watching an old-man bird for half an hour. a * V * The warmest eyes of men and women are reflected in a faithful dog’s—or vice versa—and the coldest gaze of humankind has the staring hardness of a seagull’s eyes. For silliness, the rabbit face is'proverbial; for cold cynicism, mingled with incorrigible pessimism, the camel; for stupidity, the longfaced sheep; for straight-out pessimism, mixed with rugged honesty, the gurnet; for dullness, the red cod. • ♦ * * Faces arc not the monopoly of the animal kingdom. Fruit boxes, cases, or barrels have them, as recent reports in the Press have indicated. An authoritative American hand-book on apple culture mentions the importance of the “ facer.” the top layer of the best fruit which is to catch the buyer’s eye.

Consider, too, the laces of buildings, on which Dickens wrote copiously and colorfully. What a sad day it was, some years ago, when that grey, messy stuff known pe stucco was smeared over the honest face of red brick! Happily brigher messes have been invented'. but the plain brick or stone would be much better. Even a face of real marble on wa!ls_ of brick is an undesirable pretence—simply a trick with the vanity bag on a big scale.