I am bemused by the old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Why not?

In the literal sense, book covers matter to me. Metaphorically, I believe that the way people dress and appear reflects something (albeit not everything) about themselves.

I recently stood in judgment behind a woman in line at a store. She wore an ancient sweatshirt, which had a hole in one shoulder, and sweatpants. Poverty was not an issue, as she was buying a cartload of nonessential items, plus she was wearing a Bluetooth thing on her ear.

Also, this was not the hardware store, where, my husband informs me, it is OK to shop while wearing paint-splattered chamois shirts, jeans with bits of cement stuck to them, and muddy work boots. That look, I gather, is called, “Taking a Minute from Building a Shed to Buy Some Nails.”

The look I observed is titled, “I Don’t Give a $%^@.”

Ms. Sweatpants didn’t care enough about the rest of us, who have to look at her, to put on a pair of jeans. Maybe she’s a Big Sister, a lay minister at her church and cares for her bedridden mother in her spare time. To me, she’s just a slob.

I hold fast in my belief that we owe it to each other to look halfway decent in public. When I took the Myers-Briggs personality test a while back, I learned that my designation INFP, has a quirk. We like ourselves and our homes to be neat so we don’t upset anyone. I also learned that Abraham Lincoln was probably an INFP, too. I share my quirkiness with a great man, which totally validates it for me.

Besides, if I went around without looking at people, or, worse yet, thinking everyone was wonderful, I’d be no kind of writer at all. Or I’d be working for some sappy card company, coming up with lame verses to match the flowery pink motifs on the covers.

Ah, covers.

Booksellers move more books by displaying them with their faces forward. Good covers sell books. I loved the novel, “The Paris Wife,” by Paula McLain, but had to agree with the reviewer who noted that the cover art, which depicted the lower half of a woman seated in a cafe, her chic pair of stockinged legs elegantly crossed, was misleading. In the pages within, the story’s protagonist, Hadley Richardson (Ernest Hemingway’s first wife), bemoans her frumpiness.

This is an example of overkill on the cover front. I’m sure some readers bought the book solely because it seemed to promise romance, intrigue and Paris. Plenty of others wanted to read about the Hemingways. Everyone was rewarded with romance, intrigue and Paris. This job applicant, in other words, didn’t have to wear quite so much mascara.

Still, there’s no denying that a little mascara goes a long way. A few months ago, while wrestling with a Netflix streaming of an adaptation of the P.D. James novel “Shroud for a Nightingale,” I wanted to reread the book for the fourth time. I couldn’t believe I didn’t have it my home library, but I didn’t. So I requested it through inter-library loan. When it arrived, it was an ugly, stained book without a dust jacket. Back it went. I couldn’t even bear to open it.

The sight of such books disturbs me. Last year, a student returned a textbook to the school library where I work. From all appearances, it had been left outside in a deluge, where a river rat had chewed off one of the corners.

I called him in and showed him the book, which was lying on a table on several layers of paper toweling. “That’s the way you gave it to me,” he said.

Wrong answer. “I would have never given you this book,” I said. “I won’t even touch it!”

Do I feel this way because I am a book lover, or despite the fact that I am?

I am a people lover, too. So when I see a woman wearing sweatpants, or pajama bottoms, or spandex over fat rolls, or tank tops with way too much cleavage, I want to hand her a little card that reads, “Remember the Amish.”

Talk about a great cover. See a woman in a bonnet and an old-timey dress emerge from a buggy and you immediately know who, what, why and maybe even where. That’s a good thing. Trust me and Abe on this one — we both have honest faces.

Liz Soares welcomes e-mail at [email protected].