We are not undemanding, are we

Don't we make a study of faces?

We have hopes, that we bring to

faces, and not to pictures of

anything else. I'm sure this has

been written about, but I have

not read the book or the essay,

some few excepted. I am remiss;

I've spent more time reading in

the philosophy and psychology

of hearing - in which, also, 

there is nothing obvious - and

too little in the study of our

study of faces. I would not care

to be an expert in the matter,

surprise and mystery and delight

being as important as they are

to me.

Almost every day, some days more

than once, there is a face posted

here, to exhibit a point which I

try to develop in writing. Some-

times rather a lot of the body is

shown, or some gesture, but al-

most always I happen to be think-

ing of the narrative of the face

which the body enacts. Henry James

did not do this; he built faces

from the inside, out; and I ob-

serve that what I see in a face

is what I see inside a character

to whom I am attached. This face,
which I know to be professionally
apt and variously presented, has
been published here exactly in
this way, and has come up on my
desktop every morning for years.
I still look into it. It's not
just a stylised exemplification
of an ancient standard; it's an
indefatigably interlocutory prod.

This, previously published here,

is a face I wish to restore to

this page, through the sordid

spectacle in New Hampshire. I

will not comment on its conclu-

sion. What could be the point?

But I wish also to turn away

from this spectacle, which I

apprehended would be enervating

to the page, as it has been, to

my way of thinking. Yet the num-

bers of readers it has drawn

have exceeded the highest ever

to come here; and I suppose, 

for the reason that others 

wish to get away from it, but 

with some sympathy for their 

view of it.

It's a handsome face, bred in

generosity. Let's assimilate 

this, and study what is beneath 

it, that we carry. Let's be 

grateful to each other for car-

rying it. Today, we observe a-

gain the advancement of folly

against our soul. We will turn

that, and we will see it.