‘No art to find the mind’s construction in the face’

At a recent meeting, the free-flow of Shakespearean quotes made me wonder if Shakespeare had appeared to us all in our dreams the previous night.

Of the quotes, including Mark Anthony’s “the evil that men do, lives after them; the good is oft interred in their bones,” in Julius Caesar, the one which resonated most with me was that from Macbeth that, “there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman in whom I had absolute trust.”

As little “greenhorns” in our first year in secondary school in the mid-1960s, our first encounter with English Literature was Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth,” hence my nostalgia.

Somehow, the quote “there is no art to find the mind’s construction the face” reminded me of my 2022 article titled “appearances can be deceptive!” in which I stated: 

As I listened to my radio during my morning walk on Monday, a local FM station host told a story titled, “Appearances can be deceptive.”

Before delving into the story, an experience I had in 1985 wells up!

British Caledonia

British Caledonia was a British airline that operated between Ghana and the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. It operated from Gatwick International Airport.

However, in 1987, facing serious financial problems, British Caledonia was bought and absorbed by British Airways (BA).

My flight to the UK in 1985 before the BA take-over was thus by British Caledonia. Accra-Abidjan, Ivory Coast was a short flight of less than an hour.

Passengers who joined us in Abidjan included two elegantly dressed women.

On arrival at Gatwick, we were surprisingly shepherded into an enclosure in a remote corner of the airport.

When the police officers arrived with their sniffer-dogs, they told us they were going to do routine checks for narcotics.

After going round all of us, the sniffer-dogs settled on the two women who joined us in Abidjan. As they were being led away by the police, a woman who started from Accra suddenly shouted at the passengers:

“Shame! Shame on all of you! Because I don’t look as sophisticated and well-fed as those two women, you were stealing glances at me when the police said they were going to check for narcotics! You sentenced me to a wee-carrier because of my looks and dress! Shame on you all!”

You could hear a pin drop as the guilty passengers bowed their heads in shame, knowing she was right! Appearances can be deceptive!

The presenter’s story was a true one which happened in two different parts of the world. In the 1980s, Maxwell Morrison was a schoolboy who took to the “punk-rock” fashion of the day, dressing unconventionally with tattoos over his body.

A loner, he even carried a knife on him to school making his schoolmates avoid him! 

Along a nearby riverbank one day, he heard a boy screaming “I can’t swim! Please don’t throw me in!”

Maxwell noticed three boys who had bundled a little boy to throw him into the river. Rushing at the three boys, Morrison rescued him from imminent death!

The grateful foreign student simply said to Morrison, “appearances can be deceptive!” Asked why, he said Morrison’s appearance and stories about him made him think that he would be the last to stake his life against potential murderers just to save him.

He added, rumours circulated that, on one occasion, Maxwell even stabbed a teacher.

Thirty years later in a Bangkok court in Thailand, Maxwell Morrison stood before a judge accused of smuggling narcotics in a musical instrument into Thailand.

This offence could land him in prison for life!

Morrison defended himself saying, when he saw a mother with little children struggling with her baggage, he offered to help her.

When sniffer-dogs sniffed narcotics in the instrument, the woman vanished into thin air. 

The prosecution argued that, for the senior police officer that Morrison was in Nottingham, UK, he could not have been that naïve to carry baggage for a stranger in an airport in Thailand, reputed for descending heavily on drug-smugglers.

Morrison simply said “appearances can be deceptive!”

After 45 minutes, the judge’s gavel sounded for a verdict.

“Mr Morrison, appearances can indeed be deceptive! Not guilty. You are free to go!”

Unknown to Morrison, Judge Tran Pack was the little boy whose life he saved from the three bullies who were going to throw him into a river 32 years earlier.

He made Morrison out the moment he entered his court. He knew Morrison as a man of integrity who staked his life for him. He would not smuggle narcotics anywhere! Typical of him, Morrison was only helping a woman he thought needed help!

The story at Gatwick Airport teaches us not to be judgmental, as we are likely to go wrong like the passengers.

Matthew 7, 1-3 says: “Judge not that ye be not judged.

For what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.”

In any case, how many who judge have the integrity of Maxwell Morrison to judge others, which will make Judge Tran Pack rule in our favour?

For us quick at painting everybody politically as either black or white, life has lots of gray areas. Ghana’s development needs all Ghanaian hands on deck.

The situation where at any one time, half the country appears polarised as “opponents” at best, “enemies” at worst does not make sense.

For as the saying goes, a nation divided against itself will fall.

Another lesson is that, in life it is good to do good.

Thirty-two years after saving a foreign student Tran Pack’s life in the UK, Judge Tran Pack saved Maxwell Morrison from imprisonment for life in Thailand! 

The moral of the story was/is that, never tire of doing good, “for kindness is not a debt, but an investment.” Paradoxically, dishonesty/greed is evil!

The musician Akwasi Ampofo Adjei (Mr AAA) put it simply! “If you do good, you do for yourself! If you do bad, you do for yourself!”

Whether in government, opposition or “non-aligned,” every Ghanaian deserves inclusion in national development, for “appearances can be deceptive!”

Discussion

Thirty-two years after being saved by Maxwell Morrison as a little boy in England, Judge Tran Pack also saved his saviour from life imprisonment in Thailand.

In both cases, the saying “appearances are deceptive” played out positively.

One can add that, “there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face” similarly showed positively.

On the negative side, chatting with many who had “good friends” before such friends entered politics, the “good friends” changed suddenly, and broke contact with, and abandoned them, showing the seamier side of the two quotes.

I was taught as a cadet in the early 1970s that, all the leadership qualities such as vision, knowledge, courage etc., are likely to come to naught, without Integrity.

We must be who we are at all times and avoid being double-faced.

Sixty-eight years after independence, we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, because of lack of selfless leadership with integrity, as “galamsey” destroys us.

Leadership, lead by Example! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up!

Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association,
Nairobi, Kenya/Council Chairman, Family Health University,
Accra.                        
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com