The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1871-10-21
Word Ahnuf Faces
Some uue calls the face the index of the mind;
but it was a wiser observer, the wisest of OBJ
servers, who wrote

Some one calls the face the index of the mind
but IL was a wiser observer, the WIsest or OBJ
servers, who wrote -
To fad the minds construction in the face"
There are a great many people who plume
themselves on being what IS called READERS oil
character" We never knew 4 professional
reader of this sort who was not constantly de-
ceiying himself concerning his fellow creatures
As a general thing faces have an obstinate way
Of not betraying the mental or moral traits OF
their possessors- Character doesn't put all It's
goods, nor even a small proportion of them, IN
It's show window. The idea Of reading at a
glance ANYTHING so abstruse and complex as the
human heart He Is i wise man who can un-
derstand himself, to say nothing about reading
other people
They are few things in which we are so apt to
be mistaken as in the Of-hand estimates we form
of men and women A man OF dIssIpated habits
carries signs of dissipation IN his cOuntenance
but then, intense mental labor, protracted
anxiety, and lack of exercise, will give the same
iaded. WORKOUT expression to the face. A friend
of ours, a famous student of p~hysiognomy, once
pointed out to US, on the street, a most eminent
and exemplary divine, as being evidently a mem
Der of the sporting fraternity, : a fine old SPORT"
he called him. Our friend was illustrating his
fatuous theory of reading character He COM
mitted the easiest of errors
1t so happens that a man Of the greatest de-
termination will have a weak mouth, and the
" IAAASeAI AI4 80 Oo--~NC AoEO1AN-G+ 49,
90 with firm set lip and defiant eye One of the
brayest of our young generals in the late war-a
rough rider, and reckless in battle to the verge of
madness--is a gentleman so unobtrusIye IN adj
dress, and so gentle of face, that strangers meet
ing him casually, would at once place him in that
category Of temporizing souls who are supposed
incapable OF saying boo to a goose Bret Harte
was as true To nature as to art IN his description
of the denizens of +" Roaring Camp" 1.-The
assemblage numbered about u hundred men. One
- frr1 - fHoao rraro anfraI frrfFIvaa from ms
tice, some were criminal, and all were reckless.
Physically they exhibited no Indication of their
past lives and character. The greatest scamp
had a Raphael face, with d profusiOn of blonde
hair; Oakhurst n gambler, had the melancholy
air and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet the
coolest and most courageous man was scarcely
over FIVE feet in height. with a soft voice and an
embarrassed, timid manner. -. Perhaps IN the
minor details OF fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp
may have been deficient, bat these slight omis-
sions did not detract from their aggregate force.
The strongest man had bat three fingers on his
right hama the best shot had bat one eye
These few touches, hasty and uneonsidered as
they seem, prove that the writer is Il keen OBJ
server of human nature, a reader of character In
the best sense The conventional novelist, who
has studied novels rather than life, makes his
villains the most obvious barelaced villains. The
black sheep is so very black, physically and
morally, the wonder is that the sanity hero or
the angelic heroine does not hand him over TO the
police the instant he appears. 1t is not so I'M
knowingly that Shakespeare drew his rascals. 1t
was not SO he drew lago,-outwardiy a most en-
gaging, soldierly, capital, frank-eyed fellow,
though many aeters, Judging by their mounting
and haDg-dog manner, seem to think that lago
was n cheap, transparent knave- As he is usually
represented On the boards, he would not have de-
ceived Othello for a quarter of an hour. 0thello
would have split him perpendicularly with his
scimitar at an early stage of the proceedings.
lago was a witty, fascinating, soulless villain,
cool, adroit and sunny-just such a villain, in
short, as the professional reader of character
would select from a crowd as being an open faced
honest man and a right good fellow.
1t is only in books that the sharp-leatured man
is always irritable, and the round-faced man al
ways jolly. In real life, it is often the scamp
who has the 9 smile that is child-like and bland, -
and the choice spirit, the heart of true gold, that
wears unprepOssessing clay about it.