"Mirror, mirror on the wall, Which is the fairest of us all?!"
So the wicked queen in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" used to question her magic looking- glass.
And most of us ques- tion our looking-glasses. with something of the same earnestness—even if we do set a less Bevere and exclusive standard!
Yet it has been said- and you
have probably heard it-that no woman ever sees herself in
а
a mirror as she really is.
•
This isn't only only because we are apt to lose the whole effect by concentrating too much on some detail. Though there is that danger, and I had on an example of
it lately.
A really lovely look- ing girl said to me with
complete sincerity:
"I
really think I am the
THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 3, 1938.
ing unself-conscious because to find out ought to be to talk to your fore you recognise yourself, actually go and take a look, in the mirror is self in the looking-glass; But I'm see yourself as others see you. not an u unself-conscious" act.”
afraid that apart from the risk of It's easy enough to lose that What is it really like to look at being discovered doing so (“I'm first Impression. casually-that face that you some- not really mad, Aunt Mary." "No, It gets replaced at once by the times examine so cruelly as though dear, of course not. You just lio familiar, réassuring, looking-glass under a microscope, and on which down and let me bring you an you, who has smiled and grimaced more aften you impose an attractive aspirin")—it would lead to import and posed for you sp often.
ing looking-glass ~ self-conscious. ness into ordinary conversation;.
That
girl
There is something that we can
in the mirror
isn't you!
most appallingly ugly woman here. Did you ever see anyone with such short eye-lashes?"
The real reason why we don't see ourselves as we really are is that when we question our mirrors,, we are not looking natural.
Occasionally, we are gazing with exaggerating
horror at some
blemish.
Generally, we are seeing a com- pany face.
We
don't catch ourselves off guard. We don't see ourselves look-
i
expression in front of the mirror-
in order, as it were, to "get round". yourself?
What is it really like, your carriage and the movement of that figure posing for you with studied grace (or nervous awkwardness) in the glass?
It sounds as though the way to
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Just occasionally you get a aud- den, accidental glimpse of your self in some unexpected mirror in shop, theatre, or restaurant.
And so I want you to cling on to that first impression.
To remember that the strange young woman with too long a stride or an over-vivid mouth or a pretty, curly coiffure that didn't suit the shape of her face was truly you.
The you that you hardly ever see and that others look at every day.
And if it was, in fact, an over- vivid mouth that caught your criti- cal, dispassionate gaże, use a sof- ter shade of lipstick.
And if it was lovely, haunting eyes that struck you-dramatise them; make up to them. They are your best feature.
It happened to me the other day in a strange house that I moved to go out by a door which I thought was made up of panes of, glass.
They were panes of looking- glass. As I reached it I thought: "Who is this tall, haggard stran- ger coming in from the other side?" And I stopped for fear of colli- ding with her, and almost sim- ultaneously realised that it was I.
As soon as I recognised myself the reflection took on some faint, subtle change.
The woman whom I had seen as a stranger was gone.
But I dug the word “haggard” up again in my mind, and it brought home to me that when I am lazy or tired or in a hurry I sometimes put my rouge on carelessly and in a way that makes me look thinner and older.
It isn't necessary, it doesn't even save much trouble.
I just didn't realise that I did it until I had that chance encounter.
And a
go when to-morrow, or next year, you suddenly meet in a strange mirror your unself-conscious, un- familiar self-cling with both hands to that fleeting picture.
Don't let the known image that will replace it get round you. For mirrors to-day are not magic, but they are very perverse,
It is a glimpse of a girl or woman They answer some of our ques-. who seems for an instant to be a tions quite unexpectedly and irre- stranger, at whom you glance ap- levantly at odd moments not at the "praisingly and without prejudice time when we gaze into them so
before realising, "Why-it's me." earnestly with eyes that ask:
Now when that happens to you, you do really, in that moment be-
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Is this a face to make him fall?"
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