THE ART OF SMILING.

UNTIL the other day we believed, as we daresay most of our readers believe still, that the power of smiling was one of the exclusive attributes of the human race. We were, of course, aware that some of the lower animals were in the habit of laughing. We knew that Africa possessed a "laughing hyena," and Australia a "laughing jackass;" and one English expression, "a horse-laugh," had led us to conjecture that at some remote period of our history the British horse had been wont to express, by means of laughter, that feeling of merriment of which, in these whip-cord and bearing-rein days, he can so seldom be conscious now. But laughing is not smiling, and our notion was that, although certain other privileged animals might be able to laugh when in the course of their monotonous lives they could find anything to laugh at, man alone smiled. It turns out, however, that in this opinion we were mistaken; for, upon reference to Mr. Darwin's book upon the expression of the emotions, we find that in the faces of certain of the quadrumana — for example, the orang, the chimpanzee, and the Cebus Azaræ, an expression is occasionally to be detected, which (we suppose if you make believe very much) — "may be called a smile." There is also mention made of a smiling monkey — species unstated — which belonged to Dr. Duchenne, who, when at meal-times he gave it some choice delicacy, "observed that the corners of its mouth were slightly raised, and that thus an expression of satisfaction, partaking of the nature of an incipient smile," was manifested.

      Thus it would clearly appear that man is not the only Smiler. The discovery is undoubtedly humbling to human pride; but we must bear it as best we can, consoling ourselves with the reflection, that though the inferior animals may possess the power of smiling, we have left them so little to smile at, that very few of them can have occasion to exercise this faculty, thinking it, as we conjecture, no joke to be killed and eaten, or yoked and lashed, or trapped or hunted, or vivisected, or in other ways made conducive to man's use and benefit. It is, however, not so much with the power of Smiling as with the art thereof, that we are at present concerned. Any body can smile when he is amused or pleased. The hard matter is to smile when one is not pleased, or when one does not see the joke. Herein consists the art — an art assiduously cultivated by some foreign nations, but shamefully neglected in this country. The English Smile of Art, or Artificial Smile, is usually a most inept and ghastly performance. In it the eyes take no part, as they must in any smile which would pass for genuine. It is a mere convulsion of the lower portion of the face, a showing of the teeth, a snarl rather than a smile, for which, indeed, no one mistakes it but the person that puts it on.

      Contrast this cold, unmeaning labial or dental smile with the radiant smile of the obliged foreigner. You have done him some trifling service — shown him the way to Leicester-square, say — and straightway off flies his hat to the extreme limit of his arm, where his hand retains it like a captive balloon, and he bursts, not merely from his lips, but from his eyes and from every pore of his face, and every hair of his head, into a smile so beaming, so ecstatic, as to make you feel for the moment that you have made a friend for life. An Englishman under similar circumstances would have merely grumbled out, "much obliged," at the same time pulling his lip up over his eye-teeth in a sort of sneer, which he would have intended you to take for an expression of gratitude, but which you would have seen clearly to amount to no more than this — "If you had not directed me I could have found out from the policeman at the corner."

      In the Art of Smiling it must be confessed our women are greater proficients than our men, and some of the most bewitching smiles we have ever seen have been, as we have had reason to know, completely artificial. But even our women are not by any means what they might, with a very little trouble, make themselves in this particular; and English mothers, if they were wise, would insist upon their daughters, as well as their sons, spending half-an-hour every morning in practising smiles before the glass — for there is nothing like a frank, ingenuous smile to get a man on in life or a woman "comfortably established." The man who has acquired the art of smiling pleasantly and cheerfully whenever he wishes, can, other things being equal, make a better bargain, or match, or bet, than the non-smiler. In the getting up of a limited company, or in an arrangement with creditors, a really good smile goes a very long way. The Smiler, by aid of his smile, manages his wife and his household with greater ease, and gets his dinner better served at his club. Upon his boots the boy at the corner of the street will rub a brighter polish. From him the commissionaire and the cabman will be content with half their customary overcharge. To the nephew who can always smile in the right place rather than to his brother or his cousin, will go the Consols of the maiden aunt and the acres of the bachelor uncle; the smiling lodger runs the longest "tick;" the lawyer who smiles upon his clients keeps them and obtains more; the physician who smiles over his fee is called in again and gets another; the smiling pastor leads the largest flock, and the smiling postman gets the best Christmas-box. As for women, they usually desire but one thing in life. — a husband, which they regard, and rightly, as the medium through which all other good things are to be obtained. What says the Scotch girl in the song, —

"I dinna care what I should want  So I could get a man."

Now to "get," a "man," there is nothing so efficacious as a beaming and becoming smile judiciously employed. Maidens, therefore, as well as men, should furbish up their smiles, and keep a supply of these weapons always on hand, if they would acquire what they desire.

      But though we have ventured to urge upon men and women the importance of being able to smile naturally, whenever they please and have occasion, there is no greater mistake for man or woman than to be always smiling. By this practice the value of the smile is diminished, and besides, there is nothing which gives to the countenance so fatuous or idiotic an expression as a perpetual grin. Indeed, one of the best known characteristics of idiots, is to be "persistently joyous and benign, and constantly laughing or smiling;" and in one variety of mental disease one of the signs that the last stage of complete fatuity is reached is "a prevailing expression of feeble benevolence." We should, therefore, be chary of our smiles, and not impair their effect by a too prodigal and constant use. But we should at the same time endeavour to have always at our command a balance of smiles of striking character to draw upon, so that we may never be without this species of conventional currency so useful in the hour of emergency.