A rather common type of moody person is that composed of girls who not only themselves wear habitually a dolorous expression, but who admire this expression on the faces of others. I sat to such a girl once for my portrait. She surprised me by her variant of the photographer’s familiar request. “Will you,” she said mellifluously, “please try to think of something—unpleasant?”
I tried my hardest and succeeded, within the limitations set to Irishwomen.
It has been said here that no fixed type of face belongs to a moody girl. Everyone therefore, who could paint such a girl would paint a different face. The one that I would paint would be that of one Maud Mary. It is a wonderful face, even without the smile. Something can be told of it, but all could never be told. The colouring of it is rich brown and red, the lips are the line of scarlet praised by the Psalmist, the eyes are pitch-black in shadow and golden-brown in light, the eye-brows and lashes are black, like the hair, and a black frown is much on the face, this with the result that a smile coming to it is like the flashing of light out of darkness. Maud Mary asked me once for a motto. I gave her one which is from Pythagoras, and has been praised by Bacon: “Cor ne edito,” “Eat not the heart.”
Maud Mary asked for another motto, a motto in rhyme, and in English. I gave her one from Shakespeare—
“Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the way,
Your sad tires in a mile-a!”
(To be continued.)