Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity as Chief Manager of a Life
Assurance Office, I think I have within the last thirty years seen more romances than the
generality of men, however unpromising the opportunity may, at first sight, seem.
As I have retired, and live at my ease, I possess the means that I used to want, of
considering what I have seen, at leisure. My experiences have a more remarkable aspect,
so reviewed, than they had when they were in progress. I have come home from the Play
now, and can recall the scenes of the Drama upon which the curtain has fallen, free from
the glare, bewilderment, and bustle of the Theatre.
Let me recall one of these Romances of the real world.
There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with manner. The art of
reading that book of which Eternal Wisdom obliges every human creature to present his
or her own page with the individual character written on it, is a difficult one, perhaps, and
is little studied. It may require some natural aptitude, and it must require (for everything
does) some patience and some pains. That these are not usually given to it, - that numbers
of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of the face as the whole list of
characteristics, and neither seek nor know the refinements that are truest, - that You, for
instance, give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music, Greek, Latin,
French, Italian, Hebrew, if you please, and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the
master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you, - I assume to be five
hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps a little self-sufficiency may be at
the bottom of this; facial expression requires no study from you, you think; it comes by
nature to you to know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in.
I confess, for my part, that I HAVE been taken in, over and over again. I have been taken
in by acquaintances, and I have been taken in (of course) by friends; far oftener by
friends than by any other class of persons. How came I to be so deceived? Had I quite
misread their faces?
No. Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on face and manner alone,
was invariably true. My mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain
themselves away.
The partition which separated my own office from our general outer office in the City
was of thick plate-glass. I could see through it what passed in the outer office, without
hearing a word. I had it put up in place of a wall that had been there for years, - ever since
the house was built. It is no matter whether I did or did not make the change in order that
