OLD FACES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 137, 31 August 1927, Page 6

OLD FACES

A friendly writer declares that an old face is more beautiful than a young one. He could not understand why some old women try to disguise themselves as young girls. Everyone admires an old building, a piece of old furniture, a mellow old picture, or an old garden. Why do they not admire an old face as well? Mr. St. John Ervine, the writer we are quoting, went on to say: One sees a nobility of look in the face of an old man or woman which is absent from a young face. I like the masses of wrinkles round an old man’s eyes, and the deep lines on his brow. The smoothness of the young is beautiful, like the smoothness of a fresh apple, but it has not the character that is in the roughness of the aged. I have seen serenity in the eyes of a very old man such as one sees only in the eyes of those who have endured much and not been defeated. I have often noticed that people not particularly attractive-looking in their youth become beautiful as they age. What a memorable description of an old face is this, and what a comforting moral we can draw from it! Those of us who are born unlovely can hope to be lovely one day. But of course it will depend on ourselves. Only the young can say: “My face is as God made it.” The old must say: “My face is as I made it.” The lines carved on an old face are truly carved by the plough of Time, but the plough is guided by a human soul. As soon as you see an old man you know •whether he is bad-tempered or sweet-tempered, mean-spirited or broad-minded; but who can tell anything from the face of a stranger who is young? If you walk round a portrait gallery you will soon discover that the pictures which interest you most are pictures of old men, cardinals, statesmen, admirals, and kings who ruled the world so long ago. The portraits of Court beauties are all much alike, save for differences in dress and the painters skill. That is because souls are more interesting than bodies, and we can rarely see the soul in a face till the wrinkles come to stay there. Perhaps the world will one day realise a truth which the great artists knew so long ago, and will recognise that the beauty of age lives in old faces as well as in old walls.

Sir James Barrie, the famous creator of Peter Pan, is very shy and cannot endure interviewers. When one wrote asking for personal information, he was astonished to receive the following reply: “Mr. Barrie’s favourite animal is the whale. He feeds it on ripe chestnuts.”