Chapter IX: Two Portraits

"Look on this picture, and on that."
SHAKSPEARE.

It was no small gratification to Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as, leaning on the arm of her ponderous husband, she glided into Mrs. Langley Turner's rooms that evening, to distinguish amongst the first group that met her eye, Marmaduke Ashley, resting against the doorway of the second salon, talking to Cecil Chamberlayne and Julius St. John. He was, indeed, a figure not to escape even an indifferent eye. There was lion-like grace about him; a certain indefinable something in his attitudes and movements, which, in their oriental _laisser aller_, were in sharp contrast to the stiffness and artificiality of even the least awkward of our northern dandies. When our young men are careless, they have a slouching, sprawling manner, which is more offensive to the eye than stiffness. It is only the children of warmer climates who can afford to let their limbs fall naturally, and be graceful. Marmaduke, whose prodigious chest and back betokened the strength of a bull, seemed to have united with it the agility of a deer, and was the very model of manly grace.

He was well dressed, without overdress; but he had committed one error in taste, which might, perhaps, be set down to coxcombry, in wearing a white waistcoat, somewhat larger than the fashion permitted. His chest was so expansive, and he was so tall, that this vast expanse of staring white, while it fixed all eyes upon him, made them remark how much too large the chest was for symmetry. It was _trop voyant_, to adopt the jargon of the French dandies. The effect was further increased by his wearing a white cravat, which at that time had only just began to replace the black, introduced by that puffy potentate, so wittily characterized by Douglas Jerrold as the "most finished gent. in Europe."

How many women sighed for him on that evening, I cannot tell; but certain it is, that a shadow of regret fell on Mary's heart as she remarked the beauty of her former lover, and silently compared him with her heavy, snuffy husband. Nor did he gaze on her unmoved. She was a striking figure, and would have been so even in an assembly of beauties. Perhaps the most striking part about her was her neck and bosom, with the whiteness and firmness of marble,--with its coldness too; beautiful it was, and yet repulsive; hard, cold, immodest, unvoluptuous; no blood seemed to beat in its delicate, blue veins--no heart seemed to move its rise and fall; this, the most womanly beauty of a woman, was in her unwomanly; it arrested the eye, without charming it. There was something about her whole appearance which was singularly fantastic: her golden hair, drooping in ringlets to her waist, and her dazzling skin and tiny figure gave her the appearance of a little fairy; nor did her deformity destroy this impression. She was so pretty, or rather so _piquante_, and unlike other women, that her crooked shoulder only gave a piquancy the more by the sort of compassionate feeling it raised. "What a pity such a sweet creature should be deformed!" was the universal exclamation; and this very exclamation made people think more of the charms which redeemed that deformity.

In truth, the great deformity was not in the back--it never is--but in the eyes and mouth. Theoretically, we may all declaim against faults of proportion and of outline, but, practically, it is the eyes and mouth that carry the day: according as they look and they smile, do we feel that people are beautiful or ugly; because in them lies the expression of the heart and soul. This I take to be the secret of those astounding differences in taste upon a subject of which there is a distinct standard--beauty. True, there is a standard of form and colour. We are all agreed upon the face that would make the handsomest picture; but the best part of beauty is that which the painter can never express, because he is condemned to one expression; and the beauty of the loving heart and noble soul is visible in the changing lustre of a thousand smiles and glances. Now, although we might all agree that a certain face has exquisite purity of outline, and gratifies the æsthetical sense of proportion, yet we should feel and say that some less perfect face has charmed us more. Why?--because we are indifferent to perfection? No: but because in some less harmoniously proportioned face, we have read a more loveable soul--a soul with which we can better enter into communion. Thus it is that men get distractedly enamoured of women, whose beauty is more than problematical, because without having had many opportunities of knowing their characters, but mostly from what the faces express, they read there the signs of unalterable goodness and lovingness, of high nobility of soul, or, perhaps, only of some voluptuous and passionate tendencies; and all these are qualities more fascinating than purity of outline. In support of my argument, let me mention the fact, that the women most celebrated as beauties have seldom, if ever, been picture-beauties. It is impossible from any picture of Mary Queen of Scots, for example, to imagine wherein lay the enchantment of her beauty.

Therefore, my ill-favoured reader, take courage; if your mind is honest, and your heart loving, you will have true beauty--yes, the positive effect of beauty on all those who can read the signs of honesty and loveliness.

These signs were not legible in the eyes and mouth of Mrs. Meredith Vyner; and there, as I said, lay her real deformity, though people did not call it so. Those light, grey eyes, so destitute of voluptuousness, but so full of light--so cunning, so cruel, so uncomfortable to look upon; and that small mouth, with its thin, irritable, selfish lips, which a perpetual smile endeavoured to make amiable, created a far more repulsive impression, when first you saw her, than any hump could have created: and yet she fancied that her hump was her only deformity.

She was, as I said, repulsive at first sight; but most people got over that impression after a while, as they generally do when familiarity has blunted their perceptions. It was not necessary to be a great physiognomist to see at once the nature of the soul her eyes expressed; and yet, when people heard her amiable sentiments, and noticed the meekness of her manner, they yielded to the popular sophism of its being "unjust to judge from first impressions," and they believed in her _professions_ rather than in her _expressions_--that is, in her calculated utterances rather than her instinctive and unconquerable emotions.

"But," objects the reader, "first impressions are so often false, that it would be madness to rely on them." I answer: first impressions--at least those of a broad and simple kind--are rarely, if ever, false; though often _incomplete_. The observer should not rely on them; but he should never absolutely reject them. They may be modified--greatly modified--but not contradicted. Human character is marvellously complex, and this very complexity serves to confound the observer, if he have not a clue; and that clue is best attained on a first interview, because then the perceptions are least biassed by the opinions. If he understand human nature, he will soon be able to modify his first impressions, and complete the general outline of a character.

Physiognomy is very fallacious, I know, in its details; but in its broad principles, which almost all human beings instinctively employ, there is no more infallible guide. The mistake physiognomists commit, is in not leaving sufficient margin for education. A man may have cruelty or bad temper very legible in his face, and yet not in his acts be cruel or bad-tempered; but if you interrogate his boyhood, you will find that, however he may have subdued the demon within him, he once had the quality which his face expresses, and, in the depths of his nature, he has it still: the wild beast lies chained within him, but may at any time break loose.

If physiognomy betrays us into rash judgments, far more erroneous are those into which we are betrayed by an observation of conduct or of speech, if we have not previously a clue to the character: because it is a tendency in us all to attribute importance only to important acts--only to great occasions, when as we say, a man's true nature is called forth. Nothing can be more false. Trifles are the things by which men are to be judged. If we would know them _as they are_, we should observe them in their unguarded moments, in the routine of daily and familiar life, when no man's eyes, as it were, are on them. If we would know them _as they wish to be considered_, then we may observe them when the importance of the occasion turns men's eyes upon them. Taking the most liberal view of the question, one can only say that great occasions show what men are capable of in extraordinary circumstances, not what the men are.

I am tempted to quote the remarkable words of a remarkable writer on this very point: "In our judgment of men," says Henry Taylor, "we are to beware of giving any importance to occasional acts. By acts of occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their own estimation, vain men endeavour to exalt themselves in that of mankind. It may be observed, that there are no men more worthless and selfish, in the general tenor of their lives, than some who from time to time perform feats of generosity. Sentimental selfishness will commonly vary its indulgences in this way, and vain-glorious selfishness will break out into acts of munificence. But self-government and self-denial are not to be relied on for any real strength, except in so far as they are found to be exercised in detail."*

* "The Statesman."

The first impression Mrs. Meredith Vyner made, was that of a cold, cunning, cruel woman; with plenty of nervous energy and sensibility, but no affection. If you disregarded that, and attended only to her conduct, and to the sentiments she generally expressed, you thought her an enthusiastic, affectionate, child-like creature, whose very faults sprang from an excess of warmth and impulsiveness; and so good an actress was she, that it required a keen observer, or a long intimacy with her, to detect her real character.

It has been remarked that deformed people are singularly noble, delicate, and generous in their natures; or singularly mean, cunning, and malicious. The scorn of the world so powerfully influences them, that it brings out into greater relief the features of that moral physiognomy with which nature has endowed them, making them much better or much worse than their fellows. Mrs. Meredith Vyner belonged to the latter class; but so cunning was she, that most people were entirely deceived by her; and if they were occasionally startled by some great contradiction, they got over it with the usual remark, "Oh, she is such a very strange woman!"