Generally, reading palms or handwriting or faces
     Is a job of translation, since the kind
          Gentleman often is
     A seducer, the frowning schoolgirl may
          By dying to be asked to stay;
But the body of this old lady exactly indicates her mind;

Rorschach or Binet could not add to what a fool can see
     From the plain fact that she is alive and well;
          For when one is eighty
     Even a teeny-weeny bit of greed
          Makes one very ill indeed,
And a touch of despair is instantaneously fatal;

Whether the town once drank bubbly out of her shoes or whether
     She was a governess with a good name
          In Church circles, if her
     Husband spoiled her or if she lost her son,
          Is by this time all one.
She survived whatever happened; she forgave; she became.

So the painter may please himself; give her an English park,
     Rice fields in China, or a slum tenement;
          Make the sky light or dark;
     Put green plush behind her or a red brick wall.
          She will compose them all,
Centering the eye on their essential human element.

(W. H. Auden)