A Hint From Lavater

— Lavater has stated his sincere conviction that no man can be a good physiognomist unless he is comely and well formed ; intimating that the presence of deformity or ugliness is liable to warp the judgment, as asymmetrical eyes might distort the eyesight. Passing over the obvious compliment to his own good looks, which the learned professor implies with the deliciously conscious simplicity of true genius, we might well pause to consider how much of a man’s personality is liable to pass into his artistic work, — even at times to the extent of absurd reminders of the creator’s lines and colors.

A very successful portrait painter of our own day carries so much of his own contours into his portraits that shrewd observers pretend to be able to say at what exact period of evolution the artist took his eyes off the subject to rivet them on an adjacent mirror ; just as subtle critics pretended to discover in that masterpiece of Mozart, the overture of Don Giovanni, admittedly written under pressure and punch, the passage which followed each draught of elixir. Fortunately for the fidelity of this worthy painter’s portraits, his own face is of that composite order which would look well with some stronger individuality grafted upon it. The amazing ductility of this adaptable face, indeed, reminds one of those old-fashioned woodcuts which, ready made and easily altered, used to be sold by the bushel to the cheaper illustrated papers, some years ago. One of these cuts, representing Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, could, by a few strokes of the engraver’s instrument, be transformed into Washington Crossing the Delaware, Ben Butler at Bull Run, or any popular equestrian idol.

A certain resemblance between the artist and his work may often be observed, when it is none of the artist’s seeking, and again when he would be most indignant at any such suspicion. Ole Bull’s remarkable resemblance to a violin may be mentioned iu connection with this, as also the well-known simian features and movements of a certain successful comedian, who, it was said, originally came over to this country in charge of a troupe of monkeys for Barnum’s Museum. This gentleman was wont to relate of himself that he was usually discharged at the end of a season, for clearcut incapacity, till one day the unctuous Stuart, prince of managers, took him aside, and said, with the frank condescension of his kind : “Ned, my dear boy, you can never act any part but your own. Why not go upon the stage in that part ? ”

“ What part is that ? ” queried the crestfallen star.

“ Why, the greatest fool in Christendom,” drawled Stuart. “ Get some one to write it up for you ; play it, and your fortune is made.”

The result showed the sagacity of the wily manager, for no impersonation of recent years has been nearly so popular or brought such profit.

To such as can recognize the fitness of things in the above grotesque illustration there will be no difficulty in following the analogy to higher realms, say even the highest. Those whose privilege it has been to

must surely have remarked the one characteristic which, more than any other, groups them as the work of one master hand ; not the exquisite drawing whereof every line is a poem, not the inspired tinting, — “hues which have words and speak to us of heaven,” — not alone the tranquil calm which is their common lot, but the fact that each picture is its own metaphor, that one and all bear the closest resemblance to Raphael Sanzio, and in that fact bear out Lavater, lending countenance also to the present writer’s theory of auto-portraiture.