Diogenes of London (collection)/Concerning a Grimace

by H. B. Marriott Watson

 

CONCERNING A GRIMACE

I AM unable to understand what possessed her that she puckered her face so wantonly. Ere that one act she had my sincerest homage, and but a sapient procrastination detained me from an open betrayal at her feet. I held her to be adorable beyond the common lot of women, and would have gone out of my way to thrust this faith down another's throat, even while prohibiting him from a devotion in keeping. I admit that my intentions wavered, for a man has the liberty of his manhood, and is not bound to dethrone himself at a glance. Yet I considered her, in all, so perfect an achievement as to constitute a universal challenge; and my satisfaction in her beamed in my tolerant regard of others less fortunate. She had the air of a mystery, for one thing; and it is but those we cannot plumb that draw us. For my own part I believe that the measure of one's affection is the profundity of one's ignorance. Then her talk had a certain sweetness incomparable to the accents of her inferior sisters. The toss of her head, though but a trick at the best, I had a fancy to see in my mistress; it was pretty and an exquisite irritation to my fellows whom I kept from her company. 'You shall learn,' I would say to myself, 'to wriggle at my better fortune. This pretty creature with her tricks is for me.' I desired their envy. There was that about her mouth, moreover, cultivated in me an outrageous appetite, which I doubt not I could have contained but a little longer, had she not put me to shame by this one terrible performance of her features. For the moment I had relegated her to the company of some poor fool to whom her feminine chatter was wisdom, who lived upon the sight of her for weeks, and took it as an honour did I say she had spoken of him. There is in such a crude juvenility as of a younger time than ours, when men took the smiles of women for their laws. How impossible a philosophy in this wiser age, which has allotted each his proper place! But for the nonce I was content to watch his sudden despatch of colour, his foolish elation, his silly melting eyes, his pleading smile, his ardent concern to forestall her wishes, and all the idle exhibitions of his preposterous passion. She too pleased me, but in another way; he was for my amusement, she for my delectation. It gratified me to note how she bent him at will: now into smiles, anon into a decent appearance of solicitude, playing upon his admiration as a harper upon chords. At my table I desired she should so incense my guests, whilst kicking my heels together I might chuckle at my own triumph and their delusion. (It is odd how one's humour lies so in a balance that another's must fall if it rise.) She had moved from her seat and was passing me with this delirious oaf, when, on a sudden (I presume at a remark of his), she twisted her face into a remarkable grimace.

'Twas not indeed that I hold a grimace beyond the severe limits of beauty; I have known some that were abiding treasures of contempt, astonishment, disdain, or indignation, the most artistical epitomes of these becoming emotions. But the beauty must needs be assured of her features, and reckon up the chances; such an one and such an one, indeed; but this or that——Pah! to what end is her mirror? And yet, though I confess the inelegance should have been the measure of my distaste as a man of fashion, as a philosopher I had a deeper surprise and a deeper indignation. That face awry came upon me as a swift revelation, and through it I pried into all her interior follies. I had referred unto her certain qualities becoming to so excellent a beauty, and these I now found had been even more instant in my desire of her than her mere bodily attractions. But this one brief moment had given me a newer, truer insight. Heaven! that I had come so near loving such a woman! I cannot describe it to you—(my sword is more at your service than my pen)—but in that contortion dwelt a score of abject characters. It was a peephole into her soul, and I thank God for its opportunity. To have lived with such a grimace potential had been to have dwelt under an avalanche. I should have looked for it in fear day by day; its prospect would have been my terror; in the night beside her apparitions of it had haunted me like ghosts. Yet this were a small matter; to the philosopher such an expectation would be as nothing beside the terrible evidence of her qualities thus manifest. I have no irreverence in my mind when I say that it had been purgatory to have housed with a woman of such flaws. That grimace opened a vista of her imperfections; and though I cannot depict them, they glare upon me each moment I recall it. I saw her then to be of a humbler construction than I had thought. Alas! I propound my feelings but weakly; I shall despair to make you understand me. A dozen possible vulgarities lurked round her mouth; lapses innumerable gleamed in her eyes; and for the shape of her face—it was past the semblance of loveliness. In that grimace her character was exhibited, and my own fatuity made public.

The philosophy of this fortunate disillusionment is most manifest to an astute thinker. It is a common error to suppose that the object of the affection glorifies her own actions; that from the love flows a divine halo to encircle all the properties of the beloved. It was so perhaps with the raw passions of our ancestors; it may even be so with certain backward types of our own day; but true wisdom is certain of nothing. To be cajoled, indeed, by a pretty seeming were easy even for the wisest, but haply there will come a time when the miserable man shall discover his folly. It is this knowledge should set us on edge to watch the phases ere it be too late. I am not of those who hold, as they barbarously phrase it, that it is chiefly the animal we regard in woman. Affection upon such a basis were rightly unreasonable and fatuous. But to them that seek the soul within the precincts of beauty love wears another guise. And that soul (who shall deny?) is portrayed amply in the bodily phenomena; from which the sage may gather how earnestly the tricks, gestures, and facial expressions of the sex must be regarded. In one look he shall see nothing but the modest habit of innocence, and if he go no further he will swear she be virtue incarnate. In another there will be pride, and a little pride is most commending to a man of fashion; in yet another, humour—a gift of excellence upon a dull evening, when there is no news in the town; again, timidity, which a man shall find tempting in a woman; or once again, an affectation sufficiently engaging. But if these fascinations breathe through her frequent public expressions, can you say (without due care) that she hides not as many defects? A shrewishness, the love of gossip, a leaning unto spite, an affection for the vulgar, a ribald temper, a distressing appreciation of the table, a pretentiousness, an indelicate desire of laughter: all these and more may be betrayed in looks, in gestures, in motions—in a grimace. I thank Heaven for my warning, and am constrained to feel some kind of pity for the frenzied fellow to whom my timely withdrawal has assigned her, and who now boasts himself (poor fool!) the happiest in my acquaintance.