rcourse will obliterate the
impression, but time will one day prove whether it is true.

Let us, however, not conceal from ourselves the fact that this first
impression is for the most part extremely unedifying. How poor most
faces are! With the exception of those that are beautiful, good-natured,
or intellectual, that is to say, the very few and far between, I believe
a person of any fine feeling scarcely ever sees a new face without a
sensation akin to a shock, for the reason that it presents a new and
surprising combination of unedifying elements. To tell the truth, it is,
as a rule, a sorry sight. There are some people whose faces bear the
stamp of such artless vulgarity and baseness of character, such an
animal limitation of intelligence, that one wonders how they can appear
in public with such a countenance, instead of wearing a mask. There are
faces, indeed, the very sight of which produces a feeling of pollution.
One cannot, therefore, take it amiss of people, whose privileged
position admits of it, if they manage to live in retirement and
completely free from the painful sensation of "seeing new faces." The
metaphysical explanation of this circumstance rests upon the
consideration that the individuality of a man is precisely that by the
very existence of which he should be reclaimed and corrected. If, on the
other hand, a psychological explanation is satisfactory, let any one ask
himself what kind of physiognomy he may expect in those who have all
their life long, except on the rarest occasions, harbored nothing but
petty, base and miserable thoughts, and vulgar, selfish, envious, wicked
and malicious desires. Every one of these thoughts and desires has set
its mark upon the face during the time it lasted, and by constant
repetition, all these marks have in course of time become furrows and
blotches, so to speak. Consequently, most people's appearance is such as
to produce a shock at first sight; and it is only gradually that one
gets accustomed to it, that is to say, becomes so deadened to the
impression that it has no more effect on one.

And that the prevailing facial expression is the result of a long
process of innumerable, fleeting and characteristic contractions of the
features is just the reason why intellectual countenances are of gradual
formation. It is, indeed, only in old age that intellectual men attain
their sublime expression, whilst portraits of them in their youth show
only the first traces o