s as handsome does," should now and then be useful. But it requires
some self-esteem.

There is no absolute need, however, for the face joke to be applied to
others to be successful. Since, in spite of the complexion creams,
"plumpers," and nose-machines advertised in the papers, faces will
continue to be here and there somewhat Gothic, the wise thing for their
owners is to accept them and think of other things, or console
themselves before the unflattering mirror with the memory of those
mortals who have been both quaint-looking and gifted. Wiser still
perhaps to make a little capital out of the affliction. Public men who
are able to make a jest of the homeliness of their features never lose
by it. President Wilson's public recital of the famous lines on his
countenance (which I personally find by no means unprepossessing) did
much to increase his popularity.

As a beauty I am not a star,
There are others more handsome by far.
But my face, I don't mind it,
For I keep behind it;
It's the people in front get the jar.

And an English bishop, or possibly dean, came, at last, very near earth
when in a secular address he repeated his retort to the lady who had
commented upon his extraordinary plainness: "Ah, but you should see my
brother." There is also the excellent story of the ugly man before the
camera, who was promised by the photographer that he should have justice
done to him. "Justice!" he exclaimed. "I don't want justice; I want
mercy."

The great face joke, as I say, obviously came first. Because there were
in the early days none of the materials for the other staple quips--such
as alcohol, and sausages, and wives' mothers. Faces, however, were
always there. And not even yet have the later substitutes ousted it.
Just as Shakespeare's orator, "when he is out," spits, so does the funny
man, in similar difficulties, if he is wise, say, "Do you call that a
face?" and thus collect his thoughts for fresh sallies. If all "dials"
were identical, Mr. George Graves, for example, would be a stage
bankrupt; for, resourceful as he is in the humour of quizzical
disapproval, the vagaries of facial oddity are his foundation stone.

Remarkable as are the heights of grotesque simile to which all the
Georges have risen in this direction, it is, oddly enough, to the other
and gentler sex that the classic examples (in my experience) belong. At
a dinner-party given by a certain hospitable lady who remained