i suppose every person of middle age wears a mask. it is his face, and as the years go by it settles into an expression of the man’s chief aim in life, if he can be said to have one. that is why a shrewd observer can usually tell much of a man’s character by looking keenly in his face and observing him under excitement. one of the most observing dairymen i know of says he can tell the quality of a cow by looking at her face. i notice that the expert hen men who select birds for the poultry contest spend considerable time looking at the hen’s eye and face! there she seems to show whether she is a bad egg or a good one! lady macbeth put it well when she said to her terrified husband:
“your face, my thane, is as a book
where men may read strange matters.”
we all go about wearing a mask, and those who care how they look may well ask how the mask is made.
i once roomed with a young man who used to get before a mirror and practise a smile and a laugh. he was a commercial traveler, and thought it paid him to laugh at the jokes and smile as he talked. so he trained the muscles of his face and throat into a machine-made twist and noise which represented his stock in trade! he wore a mask. i have heard people say that the face powders and massage and tricks of rolling the eyes about gave them a mask of beauty. not long ago i talked with a great business man who had simply given his life up to the accumulation of property. he had succeeded, but this success had stamped his face with a mask as hard and flinty as steel. this man sat and told me that a good share of his money had been made by his ability to read character in the face. when he found a man showing indecision or fear in his features this man knew he could handle him as he saw fit. he claimed that thought or sentiment had little to do with it; it was simply what a man did or did not do which made the mask of life. as for this theory that character or sentiment “light a candle behind the face and illuminate it,” he said that was simply “poetic nonsense.” “if a woman wanted to be thought beautiful after she got to be forty she must rub the beauty in from the outside.”
this seemed to me a mighty cynical theory, for the most beautiful women i know of are over fifty and never use anything but soap and water to “rub the beauty in.” they wear a mask which seems like concentrated sunshine, and it comes from within. yet my friend sat there and spoke with all the conviction of a man who has only to write his name on a piece of paper to bring a million dollars to support his word. and he had come to think that is about the only support worth having. i asked him if he had ever read hawthorne’s story of “the old stone face.” no, he had never heard of it before—had no time for fiction or dreaming. so i told him the story briefly; of the boy who grew up among the hills, within sight of the “old stone face.” this was a great rock on the side of a high mountain. the wind and the storm had slowly eaten it away until, when viewed from a certain angle, it bore a rude resemblance to a human face. it was a stern, gloomy, thoughtful face, and it seemed to this boy to have been carved out of the rock by the very hand of god to show the world an ideal of power and majesty on the human countenance. to most of the neighbors it was merely “the old man of the mountain”—merely a common rock with an accidental shape. but this boy grew up to manhood believing in his heart that god had put on the lonely mountain his ideal of the mask of noble human character. and the boy went through life thinking that if he could only find a human being with a face like that on the mountain he would find a great man—one carrying in his life a great message to mankind. and so, whenever he heard of any great statesman or poet or preacher appearing anywhere within reach this man traveled to see him in the hope of finding the mask of the “stone face” upon the celebrity. he was always disappointed. these great men all showed on their faces the marks of dissipation or pride or some weakness of character, along with their power. he would come back and look up at the face on the mountain—always showing the same calm dignity and strength whether the happy june sunshine played over it, or whether the january storm bit at its rude features. so this man lived his simple life and died—disappointed because he had never been able to find god’s ideal character worked out in a human face! one by one men who were considered great came to the valley, only to disappoint him, but finally, after long years of waiting and searching, the neighbors suddenly found that their friend, who had carried the ideal so long in his heart, also carried on his face the nobility and grandeur of the figure on the mountain. search for the ideal in others had brought it home to his own life.
to my surprise, the rich and strong man who, i supposed, had no poetry or sentiment in his heart, listened attentively and nodded his head.
“i have seen that stone face in the white mountains. your story of course is a mere fancy. there might have been some idle dreamer to whom that happened. i will not deny it, because i know of a case which is somewhat in the same line. i confess that i would not believe it had i not seen it myself.”
so he told his story, and i give it as nearly as possible in his own words:
“it must have been fifteen years ago that i was returning from a business trip to europe. on the boat i met a college man from my city, an expert in modern languages. we were much together on the trip, and one day we went down into the steerage to look over the immigrants. my friend figured that this group of strange human beings talked with him in fifteen different languages or dialects. one family in particular interested me. they were from the south of poland; a man and woman of perhaps thirty-five, with two little boys. they were of the dull, heavy, ox-like type—mere beasts of burden in their own country. the woman seemed to me just about the plainest, homeliest creature i had ever seen. low forehead, flat features, small eyes and great mouth, with huge hands and feet, she seemed, beside the dainty women of our own party, like some inferior animal. i offered her a good-sized bill—they looked as if they needed it—but the woman just pulled her two black-eyed boys closer to her and refused to take it.
“they passed out of my mind, until one fine, sunny morning old sandy hook seemed to rise up out of the water, and we headed straight for new york harbor. i stood with my college friend in front, looking down upon the steerage passengers as they crowded forward to get their first view of america. strangely enough that little polish family that had interested me stood right below us, and my friend could hear what they were saying. the ship crawled up the harbor, past staten island, and then came to the statue of liberty. most of us have become so familiar with this bronze beauty that we do not even glance at it. i think her strong, fine face and uplifted torch mean little more than old-time habit to many americans. not so with that flat-faced, plain polish woman. as we came even with the ‘bronze goddess’ this woman tore off the little shawl she had tied around her head, reached out her hand and talked excitedly to her husband. my college friend listened to the conversation and laughed.
“‘what is she saying?’ i asked.
“‘why, the poor, homely thing is telling her husband that it would be the pride and joy of her life if she could only be as beautiful as that statue—if her face were only like that.’
“‘that is the limit. what is he saying?’
“‘just like every other husband. he is telling her that to him she is handsomer than the old goddess, and for good measure he tells her that under freedom in america she will come to look like “miss liberty.”’
“in all my life i had never heard anything so ridiculous, and i laughed aloud. the little family below us looked up at the sound and saw we were laughing at them. a great shadow fell over their day dream and they were silent until we docked, though i noticed that they stood hand in hand all the way. the story seemed so good that i told it everywhere, and it was called the standard joke of the season.
“it faded out of mind and i never thought of it again until about ten years later one of the foremen in the factory died suddenly. i asked the manager who should be put in his place.
“‘well,’ he said, ‘there is a man out in the shop just fitted for it. i can’t pronounce his name, but i will bring him in.’
“he did; a great black-haired man who looked me right in the eye as i like to have people do.
“‘how long have you been in this country?’ i asked.
“‘ten years. you may not remember, but i came in the ship with you; in the steerage, with my wife and two boys.’
“it flashed into my mind at once; this was what america had done for the man. i smiled as i thought of the flat-faced woman who wanted to look like the goddess of liberty, and the man whose faith in america was such that he told her this dream could come true.
“the man more than made good. it is wonderful how things happen in this country. those two black-eyed boys were at school with my boy and played on the football team with him. they were all three to go to college together.
“then you know how, before we entered the war, the women organized to do red cross work? one day my wife came home and told me how a polish woman had made the most wonderful talk before her society. before we knew it america had entered the war, and we were all at it. you couldn’t keep my boy here. he volunteered the first week after war was declared, and these two black-haired boys belonging to my foreman volunteered with him, and they all went over the sea to fight for america.
“i had not seen their mother, and i was curious to see what she looked like after american competence and success had been rubbed in. we had a big parade in our town during one of the liberty loan drives, and there was one division of women who carried service flags. i stood in the window of my club watching the parade, and as it happened within six feet of me on the sidewalk stood john, my foreman. i did not laugh this time, nor was he shamed into silence for what he thought of his wife.
“oh, how that war did stir up and level the elements of american society! there passed before us in parade, side by side, my wife with a service flag of one star and john’s wife with two stars in her flag! and as they passed they turned and looked at us. my wife told me later that they had been talking as they marched. my wife had asked her comrade if she did not feel dreadfully to think of her two great boys far away in france. and the woman with the flat, homely face had answered:
“‘no, i feel glorified to think that i, the poor immigrant woman, can offer my boys in part payment for what america has done for me and my people.’
“and it was just then that i saw her face. i give you my word that at that moment it was the most beautiful face i ever saw. there was a calm beauty and dignity, a light of joy upon it which made me forget the flat nose, the narrow forehead and the great mouth. they passed on, and john, the foreman, looked up at me. we were both thinking the same thing, master and man though we were. i couldn’t reach him with my hand, but i did say:
“‘john, she has had her life wish. she has come to look like the goddess of liberty. it was a miracle.’
“and john answered in his slow, thoughtful way:
“‘no, not a miracle—always she has had that great spirit in her heart; always that great love in her soul. she has kept that love and spirit pure all through these hard years, and now at the great sacrifice it shone out through her face. said i not right that my wife would come to be the most beautiful woman on earth?’”
my friend told the story in a matter-of-fact way, and then fell into a silence. i did not ask him how he reconciled this experience with his statement that beauty is rubbed in from the outside. it wasn’t worth while; we both knew better. the face of mature years is a mask. it is the candle behind it that gives it character and beauty.
