You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait – a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unifinished. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with every tiny readjustment of the “values”, with every modification of the chiarouscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candlelight. when all the house is still.
— From Lud-in-the-Mist