弗朗西斯·帕金森·凱絲/Frances Parkinson Keyes
There is a story about a proposed appointment in Lincoln's cabinet that I have always liked very much. One of his advisers urgently recommended a candidate and Lincoln declined to follow the suggestion. So he was asked to give his reasons.
“I don't like the man's face.”Lincoln explained briefly.
“But the poor man is not responsible for his face.”His advocate insisted.
“Every man over forty is responsible for his face.”Lincoln replied, and turned to the discussion of other matters.
Recently, at the instigation of my publisher, I had some photographs taken. It was a long time, he reminded me, since I had supplied him with a new one; I could not go on using the same pose indefinitely. I do not enjoy the process of being photographed, and when I saw the results of this latest ordeal, I enjoyed these still less. I compared the new photograph with one that had been taken twenty-five years ago, and my feminine vanity suffered an acute pang at the thought of being presented to the public as I am today. My first instinct was to have the prints “touched up”, though I have never “touched up”my own face or my own hair because I have always maintained that women who did this deceived no one except themselves. As I thoughtfully considered the photographs, I knew that as till more important principle was involved.
A quarter century of living should put a great deal into a woman's face besides a few wrinkles and some unwelcome folds around the chin. In that length of time she has become intimately acquainted with pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, life and death. She has struggled and survived, failed and succeeded. She has lost and regained faith. And, as a result, she should be wiser, gentler, more patient and more tolerant than she was when she was young. Her sense of humor should have mellowed, her outlook should have widened, her sympathies should have deepened. And all these should show. If she tries to erase the imprint of age, she runs the risk of destroying, at the same time, the imprint of experience and character.