Now and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled.
It is a woman's face usually; often a face which has trace of great sorrow
all over it, till the smile breaks. Such a smile transfigures; such a
smile, if the artful but knew it, is the greatest weapon a face can have.
Sickness and age cannot turn its edge; hostility and distrust cannot
withstand its spell; little children know it, and smile back; even dumb
animals come closer, and look up for another.
If one were asked to sum up in one single rule what would most conduce to
beauty in the human face, one might say therefore, "Never tamper with your
smile; never once use it for a purpose. Let it be on your face like the
reflection of the sunlight on a lake. Affectionate good-will to all men
must be the sunlight, and your face is the lake. But, unlike the sunlight,
your good-will must be perpetual, and your face must never be overcast."
"What! smile perpetually?" says the realist. "How silly!"
Yes, smile perpetually! Go to Delsarte here, and learn even from the
mechanician of smiles that a smile can be indicated by a movement of
muscles so slight that neither instruments nor terms exist to measure or
state it; in fact, that the subtlest smile is little more than an added
brightness to the eye and a tremulousness of the mouth.
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