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_ Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity as Chief
Manager of a Life Assurance Office, I think I have within the last
thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men, however
unpromising the opportunity may, at first sight, seem.
As I have retired, and live at my ease, I possess the means that I
used to want, of considering what I have seen, at leisure. My
experiences have a more remarkable aspect, so reviewed, than they
had when they were in progress. I have come home from the Play
now, and can recall the scenes of the Drama upon which the curtain
has fallen, free from the glare, bewilderment, and bustle of the
Theatre.
Let me recall one of these Romances of the real world.
There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with
manner. The art of reading that book of which Eternal Wisdom
obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with
the individual character written on it, is a difficult one,
perhaps, and is little studied. It may require some natural
aptitude, and it must require (for everything does) some patience
and some pains. That these are not usually given to it, - that
numbers of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of the
face as the whole list of characteristics, and neither seek nor
know the refinements that are truest, - that You, for instance,
give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music,
Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, if you please, and do not
qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking
over your shoulder teaching it to you, - I assume to be five
hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps a little
self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this; facial expression
requires no study from you, you think; it comes by nature to you to
know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in.
I confess, for my part, that I HAVE been taken in, over and over
again. I have been taken in by acquaintances, and I have been
taken in (of course) by friends; far oftener by friends than by any
other class of persons. How came I to be so deceived? Had I quite
misread their faces?
No. Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on
face and manner alone, was invariably true. My mistake was in
suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away. _
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