DOI article:
Beerbohm, Max: A defence of cosmetics
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20196#0077
By Max Beerbohnl 71
lined with thought; beautiful and without meaning are their
faces.
And, truly, of all the good things that will happen with the
füll renascence of cosmetics, one of the best is that surface will
finally be severed from soul. That damnable confusion will be
solved by the extinguishing of a prejudice which, as I suggest,
itself created. Too long has the face been degraded from its rank
as a thing of beauty to a mere vulgär index of character or
emotion. We had come to troubling ourselves, not with its
charm of colour and line, but with such questions as whether the
lips were sensuous, the eyes füll of sadness, the nose indicative of
determination. I have no quarrel with physiognomy. For my
own part, I believe in it. But it has tended to degrade the face
ssthetically, in such wise as the study of cheirosophy has tended
to degrade the hand. And the use of cosmetics, the masking of
the face, will change this. We shall gaze at a woman merely
because she is beautiful, not stare into her face anxiously, as into
the face of a barometer.
How fatal it has been, in how many ways, this confusion of
soul and surface ! Wise were the Greeks in making piain masks
for their mummers to play in, and dunces we not to have done the
same ! Only the other day, an actress was saying that what she
was most proud of in her art—next, of course, to having appeared
m some provincial pantomime at the age of three—was the deft-
ness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a rapid succes-
sion of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge from
the palm of her right hand, or powder from the palm of her left.
Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the stage i
•Drama is the presentment of the soul in action. The mirror of
the soul is the voice. Let the young critics, who seek a cheap
reputation for austerity, by cavilling at " incidental music," set
their
lined with thought; beautiful and without meaning are their
faces.
And, truly, of all the good things that will happen with the
füll renascence of cosmetics, one of the best is that surface will
finally be severed from soul. That damnable confusion will be
solved by the extinguishing of a prejudice which, as I suggest,
itself created. Too long has the face been degraded from its rank
as a thing of beauty to a mere vulgär index of character or
emotion. We had come to troubling ourselves, not with its
charm of colour and line, but with such questions as whether the
lips were sensuous, the eyes füll of sadness, the nose indicative of
determination. I have no quarrel with physiognomy. For my
own part, I believe in it. But it has tended to degrade the face
ssthetically, in such wise as the study of cheirosophy has tended
to degrade the hand. And the use of cosmetics, the masking of
the face, will change this. We shall gaze at a woman merely
because she is beautiful, not stare into her face anxiously, as into
the face of a barometer.
How fatal it has been, in how many ways, this confusion of
soul and surface ! Wise were the Greeks in making piain masks
for their mummers to play in, and dunces we not to have done the
same ! Only the other day, an actress was saying that what she
was most proud of in her art—next, of course, to having appeared
m some provincial pantomime at the age of three—was the deft-
ness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a rapid succes-
sion of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge from
the palm of her right hand, or powder from the palm of her left.
Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the stage i
•Drama is the presentment of the soul in action. The mirror of
the soul is the voice. Let the young critics, who seek a cheap
reputation for austerity, by cavilling at " incidental music," set
their