The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-10-05
Faces.

The sitters who throug the photographers
establishment are a curious study. They are
Of all ages, from the babe in arms to the old
wrinkled patriarchs and danes whose smiles
have as many burrows as an ancient elm has
rings that count its summers. The sun is
Rembrandt 10 his way, and loves to track all
the lines in these old splntered faces. A pho
tograph of one Of them Is like one of those
fosslzed sea-beaches where the raln-drops
have left their marks, and the shell-tish the
grooves in which they crawled, and wading
birds the divergent lines Of their footsteps
tears cares, griefs, once vanishing as impress
sions from the sand now fixed as the vestlges
in the sandstone.
Attitudes dresses, features, hands, feet,
betray the social grade of the candidates for
portraiture. The picture tells no lie about
them. There is no use in their putting on
airs the make-beeve gentleman and lady
cannot look like the genuine article. Medi-
ocrity shows itself for what it is worth, no mat
ter what temporary fame it may have acquir-
ed. Ill-temper cannot hide itself under the
shipper of assumed amiability. The queru-
lousness of incompetent, complaining natures
confesses itself almost as much as in the tones
of the voice. The anxiety which strives to
smooth its forehead cannot get rid of the tell
tale furrow. The weakness which belongs to
the infrm of purpose and vacous of thought
is hardly to be disguised, even though the
moustache is allowed to hide the center of ex-
preston.
All parts of face doubtless have their
fixed relations to each other and to the char
cter of the person to whom the face ibe..ongs.
But there is one feaure, and especially at one
part of that feature, which more than any
other facial sign reveals the nature of the in
dividua The feature is the mouth, and the
portion Of it referred to is the corner. A cir
Gle of half an inch radius, having its center at
the junction of the two lips, will include the
chief focus of expression.
We have learned many curious facts from
Photographic port ats which we were slow to
learn from faces. One is the great number
of aspects belonging to each couutenance with
which we are familiar Sometimes, in look
ing at portrait, it seems to US that this is
just the lace we know, and that it is always
tHuo DuI again duOUuOi view SuuWo US u
wholly different aspect, and yet as absolutely
characteristic as the first; aud a third aud a
fourth convince US that cur friend was not one,
but many, in outward appearance, as in the
mental and emotional shapes by which his
inner nature made itself know to US.
Another point which must have struck ev-
erybody who has studied Photographic por-
traits is the family likeness that shows itself
throughout whole wide connection. We no.
tice it more readily than in life, from the
fact that we bring many of these family por-
traits together and study them at our ease.
There is something in the face that CORES
ponds to tone in the voice-recognizable, not
capable of description and this kind of resem-
blance in the faces Of kindred we may OBJ.
!, serve, though the features themselves are
wonderfully tenacious Of their old patterns.
The Prince Of Wales is getting to look like
George Ill. We noticed it when he was in