Essays in Portraiture Defended (3)

That, however, is not the case. Praise would be highly valuable if it were possible to derive any actual profit from it through such extravagant employment. But as it is, those people in my opinion are in the same case that an ugly man would be in if someone should officiously put a handsome mask upon him and he were to pride himself greatly upon his beauty, regardless of the fact that it was detachable and could be destroyed by the first comer, in which event he would look still more ridiculous when he stood revealed in his own proper features and showed what ugliness had been hidden behind that lovely mask. Or it would be as if someone who was small should put on the buskins of an actor and try to compete in height with those who, on an even footing, overtop him by a full cubit.”