Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/85

 She lifted Edith Dale's letter. It was very long and she skimmed a page or two before the lines held her attention. Then: Magdalen Roberts has hit upon a certain secret we all know and is going to teach it for large sums of money. Her little tract is called. The Importance of the Façade. Have you seen it? She writes in a learned way of the basic principle of facial integrity—in which she proposes to give instruction, though she admits it will be expensive, but worth the money. In fact, she is going to show her students how to make faces! Of course, any meditative person like you or me learns from our own insides how to make our faces. We're the kind who find out all our secrets. A few others know this trick. I once knew a man who was as dissipated and drunkridden as it was possible to be, but he cared for just one thing more than drink and that was his beautiful face. He put his attention on it and kept it intact. He knew how to renew it daily from the source—and how to wipe off every blemish. One would see him coming to lunch around the corner of the house—unaware of observers—and the ghastly reaction of drink pressure criss-crossed his face and everything sagged and puffed, but once in the door, the creator had wiped off every trace and the Greek mask prevailed. We can all do this if we learn how and want to badly enough. And furthermore we can do it when we want to—and when we don't want to our faces go hang with their