Ever since my earliest recollections I have been a victim to
circumstances.
Beauty, which others desire and try every means to obtain, to me has
been a source of untold misery. From my infancy, when ugly women with
horrid breaths would stop my nurse in the streets and insist upon
kissing me--through my school-days, when the girls would pet me and
offer me a share of their nuts and candies, and the boys laugh at me in
consequence, and call me "gal-boy," squirt ink upon my face for
beauty-spots, and present me with curl-papers and flowers for my
hair--until the present, when I am denied introductions to young ladies
and am put off on old women--I have suffered for my looks.
In my boarding-house I am shunned as if I had the plague. When I enter
the parlor or dining-room, I see the ladies look at each other with a
knowing air, as much as to say, "Look at him!" And the answer is
telegraphed back, "Ain't he handsome? but he knows it," as if I could
help knowing it with every one telling me so fifty times a day; and
husbands pay unusual attention to their wives when I am around, as if I
were an ogre.
I am naturally a modest man, made more so by my extreme sensitiveness to
personal criticism; and to be obliged to stand apparently unconscious,
when I know I am being looked at and commented upon, is harrowing to my
feelings. I feel sometimes as if I should drop down on the floor, but
then folks would never stop laughing if I did, at what they would be
pleased to term my extreme ladylikeness! I have actually prayed that I
might get the small-pox, and once walked through the small-pox hospital
for that purpose, but escaped unharmed.
I suppose I must have been vaccinated. In fact, I know I have been, for
how often have I looked at the scar on my arm, and wished it had been on
my cheek, or at the end of my nose, or, in fact, on any place where it
might be considered a blemish.
When I was a child I came near killing myself one night by going to bed
with two large bottle-corks thrust into my nostrils, to make them large,
like other boys'; and have made my mouth sore by stretching it with my
fingers, or forcing melon-rinds into it, to enlarge it. But it was
useless; perhaps the mouth might be sore for a couple of days, but its
shape remained unaltered.
Now that I am a man, I am as unfortunate as ever. My hair _will_ curl,
even when shaved within half-an-inch of the scalp; my moustache will
stay jet-black, although I sometimes wax the ends of it with soap, and
walk on the sunny side of Broadway; my teeth are perfect, and I never
need a dentist; and my hands are shameful for a man,--so all my
old-maid-aunts and bachelor-uncles say.
My affections have been trifled with several times, "because," as they
said, "when they had drawn me to the proposing point, I was too handsome
to be good for anything as a husband--I did very well for a beau."
Goodness! is it only ugly men that can marry? I want to marry and settle
down; for I am so slighted in society that I look with envy upon homely
or mis-shapen men.
But who will have me? I put it to you, my friend, if it isn't a hard
case. I want an intelligent and agreeable wife, and one that comes of a
respectable family. I don't think I am asking too much, but it seems
fate has determined such a one I can never have! I have either to remain
single, or take one that is "ignorant and vulgar." That, of course,
would be as much remarked upon as my appearance, so it cannot be thought
of.
I want to escape observation and criticism. I think strongly of
emigrating to the Rocky Mountains, donning a rough garb, and digging for
gold, in the hope of getting round-shouldered; or hiring myself out as a
wood-chopper, in anticipation of a chip flying up and taking off part of
my obnoxious nose.
If there were no women around, I might escape notice out there. But if
one happened to come along, I should be obliged to leave, for her eyes
would ferret out my unfortunate peculiarities, and all my wounds would
be opened afresh. Sometimes I think there is no spot on the globe where
I would be welcomed; and I feel inclined to commit some desperate deed,
that I may be arrested and confined out of the sight of man and
woman-kind, until I am aged and bent enough to be presentable.
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