A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation

When he wrote a letter, he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a by-matter

You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.

That doesn't give me any insight if it's just a run-of-the-mill 'here's my formula' recommendation letter.

You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.

I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind