Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
 W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919). copy citation

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Author W. Somerset Maugham
Source The Moon and Sixpence
Topic appearance mask
Date 1919
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/222/222-h/222-h.htm

Context

“In social intercourse he gives you the surface that he wishes the world to accept, and you can only gain a true knowledge of him by inferences from little actions, of which he is unconscious, and from fleeting expressions, which cross his face unknown to him. Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. But in his book or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless. His pretentiousness will only expose his vacuity. The lathe painted to look like iron is seen to be but a lathe. No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind.” source

Meaning and analysis

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