Those who use this proverb can never have seen Mrs. Conrady.
The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from the celestial
beauty. As she partakes more or less of this heavenly light, she
informs, with corresponding characters, the fleshly tenement which she
chooses, and frames to herself a suitable mansion.
All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady, in her
pre-existent state, was no great judge of architecture.
To the same effect, in a Hymn in honour of Beauty, divine Spenser,
_platonizing_, sings:--
--"Every spirit as it is more pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
For of the soul the body form doth take:
For soul is form, and doth the body make."
But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady.
These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philosophy; for here, in
his very next stanza but one, is a saving clause, which throws us all
out again, and leaves us as much to seek as ever:--
"Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,
Either by chance, against the course of kind,
Or through unaptness in the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is perform'd with some foul imperfection."
From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen somebody like Mrs.
Conrady.
The spirit of this good lady--her previous _anima_--must have stumbled
upon one of these untoward tabernacles which he speaks of. A more
rebellious commodity of clay for a ground, as the poet calls it, no
gentle mind--and sure hers is one of the gentlest--ever had to deal
with.
Pondering upon her inexplicable visage--inexplicable, we mean, but by
this modification of the theory--we have come to a conclusion that,
if one must be plain, it is better to be plain all over, than, amidst
a tolerable residue of features, to hang out one that shall be
exceptionable. No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance, that it
would be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull her to
pieces in this manner. We have seen the most malicious beauties of her
own sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The _tout ensemble_
defies particularising. It is too complete--too consistent, as we may
say--to admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some
Apelles had picked out here a lip--and there a chin--out of the
collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical
whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or
parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is
improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than
is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too
it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without
pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the
course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight
of her face, is an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to
have seen it--like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one
ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and
not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her
for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face
somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in
such a parlour it first struck you--like a bust. You wondered where
the owner of the house had picked it up. You wondered more when it
began to move its lips--so mildly too! No one ever thought of asking
her to sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it would
be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your heart, which, once
seen, can never be out of it. It is not a mean face either; its entire
originality precludes that. Neither is it of that order of plain faces
which improve upon acquaintance. Some very good but ordinary people,
by an unwearied perseverance in good offices, put a cheat upon our
eyes: juggle our senses out of their natural impressions; and set us
upon discovering good indications in a countenance, which at first
sight promised nothing less. We detect gentleness, which had escaped
us, lurking about an under lip. But when Mrs. Conrady has done you a
service, her face remains the same; when she has done you a thousand,
and you know that she is ready to double the number, still it is that
individual face. Neither can you say of it, that it would be a good
face if it was not marked by the small pox--a compliment which is
always more admissive than excusatory--for either Mrs. Conrady never
had the small pox; or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it stands upon
its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her mark, her token; that
which she is known by.