Rain was not salubrious for his appearance: it made his dark hair dye run, and risked showing the gray in his short sideburns. Public speaking—a president’s first task—was also not salubrious for his appearance. “The disjointedness,” as Garry Wills described it, “seemed expressed in his face as he scowled (his only expression of thoughtfulness) or grinned (his only expression of pleasure). The features do not quite work together. The famous nose looks detachable…. The parts all seem to be worked by wires, a doomed attempt to contrive ‘illusions of grandeur.’”
