The Fine Art of Smiling by Helen Hunt Jackson

Some theatrical experiments are being made at this time to show that all possible emotions and all shades and gradations of emotion can be expressed by facial action, and that the method of so expressing them can be reduced to a system, and taught in a given number of lessons. It seems a matter of question whether one would be likely to make love or evince sorrow any more successfully by keeping in mind all the while the detailed catalogue of his flexors and extensors, and contracting and relaxing No. 1, 2, or 3, according to rule. The human memory is a treacherous thing, and what an enormous disaster would result from a very slight forgetfulness in such a nicely adjusted system! The fatal effect of dropping the superior maxillary when one intended to drop the inferior, or of applying nervous stimuli to the up track, instead of the down, can easily be conceived. Art is art, after all, be it ever so skilful and triumphant, and science is only a slow reading of hieroglyphs.

Nature sits high and serene above both, and smiles compassionately on their efforts to imitate and understand. And this brings us to what we have to say about smiling. Do many people feel what a wonderful thing it is that each human being is born into the world with his own smile? Eyes, nose, mouth, may be merely average commonplace features; may look, taken singly, very much like anybody's else eyes, nose, or mouth. Let whoever doubts this try the simple but endlessly amusing experiment of setting half a dozen people behind a perforated curtain, and making them put their eyes at the holes. Not one eye in a hundred can be recognized, even by most familiar and loving friends. But study smiles; observe, even in the most casual way, the variety one sees in a day, and it will soon be felt what subtle revelation they make, what infinite individuality they possess.