THE DISADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS.
The next day Julius was meditatively fishing in the mill-pool
adjoining the village school, and trying to decipher the character of
Rose, who alternately fascinated and repulsed him by her vivacity.
I have said that he was utterly destitute of all personal beauty.
This is so common an occurrence, that it would scarcely be worth
mentioning in any other case: beauty being the quality which, of all
others, men can best dispense with. A charm when possessed, its
absence is not an evil. In Julius's case, however, it happened to be
important, from the importance he attributed to it, and the excessive
importance given to it by him thus originated.
His nurse was a very irascible woman, and whenever she was angry,
taunted him with being such "an ugly, little fright." As she never
called him ugly but when she punished him, he early began to
associate something peculiarly disagreeable with ugliness. This
would have soon passed away at school, had not the boys early
discovered that his ugliness was a sore point with him; accordingly,
endless were the jests and sneers which, with the brutal recklessness
of boyhood, they flung at him on that score. The climax of all, was
on one cold winter morning, when the shivering boy crept up to the
fire, and was immediately repulsed by a savage kick from one of the
elder boys there warming himself. Crying with the pain, he demanded
why he was kicked. The _why_ really was a simple movement of wanton
brutality and love of power, usual enough among boys; but the tyrant
chose to say, "Because you're such a beast!"
"No, I'm not," he sobbed.
"Yes, you are, though!"
"You've no business to kick me; I didn't do anything to you."
"I shall kick you as much as I like; you're so d--d ugly!"
It had never occurred to him before to be thrashed for his ugliness;
and although he deeply felt the injustice, yet he, from that day,
imagined that his appearance was a serious misfortune.
Increasing years, of course, greatly modified this impression, but
the effect was never wholly effaced. From the constant dinning in
his ears that he was ugly, he had learned to accept it as a fact,
about which there could be no dispute, but which no more troubled him
than the consciousness that he was not six feet high. He became
hardened to the conviction. Sneers or slights affected him no more.
He was ugly, and knew it. To tell him of it was to tell him of that
to which he had long made up his mind, and about which he had no
vestige of vanity.
It is remarkable how conceited plain people are of their persons.
You hear the fact mentioned and commented on in society, as if it
were surprising; and you catch yourself "wondering" at some
illustration of it, as if experience had not furnished you with
numberless examples of the same kind. But the explanation seems to
me singularly simple. You have only to take the reverse of the
medal, and observe that beauty is not half so solicitous of
admiration as deformity, and the solution of the question must
present itself. Conceit--at least that which shows itself to our
ridicule, is an eager solicitation of our admiration. Now, beauty
being that which calls forth spontaneous admiration, needs not to be
solicitous; and the more unequivocal the beauty, the less coquettish
the woman. When, however, a woman's beauty is so equivocal that some
deny it, while others admit it, the necessity for confirmation makes
her solicitous of every one's praise; and she exhibits coquetry and
conceit--due proportion being allowed for the differences in amount
of love of approbation inherent in different individuals (a condition
which influences the whole of this argument). Carry this further,
and arrive at positive plainness, and you have this result: the
_amour propre_ of the victim naturally softens the harsh outlines of
the face. He sees himself in a more becoming mirror. However, the
fact may have been forced upon him, that he is ill-looking, he never
knows the extent of his ugliness, and he is aware that people differ
immensely in their estimates of him; he has--fatal circumstance! even
been admired. Now, admiration is such a balm to the wounded
self-love, that he craves for more--he is eager to solicit an
extension of it, and hence that desire to attract closer attention to
him manifested by audacity of dress, certain that the closer he is
observed, the more he must be admired. He feels he is not so ugly as
people say; he knows some do not think so; he wants your confirmation
of the discerning few. In a thousand different ways he solicits some
of your admiration. You see his object, and smile at his conceit.
Now the effect of Julius St. John's education had been to cut out,
root and branch, that needless desire to be admired for what he knew
was not admirable. He had made up his mind to his ugliness. The
benefit was immense. It saved him from the hundred tortures of
self-love to which he must otherwise have been exposed--that Tantalus
thirst for admiration which cannot be slaked; and it imparted a quiet
dignity to his manner, which was not without its charm.
The deplorable circumstance was, that he had also imbibed a notion of
the great importance of beauty in the eyes of women, which made him
consider himself incapable of being loved. As a boy, maid-servants
had refused to be kissed by him, because he was "a fright." As a
young man, he had often been conscious that girls said they were
engaged when he asked them to dance, because they would not dance
with one so ugly. In the novels which he read the heroes were
invariably handsome, and great stress was laid upon their beauty;
while the villains and scoundrels were as invariably ill-favoured.
The conversation of girls ran principally upon handsome men; and
their ridicule was inexhaustible upon the unfortunates whom Nature
had treated like a stepmother.
One trait will paint the whole man. They were one day talking about
ugliness at the Hall, when Rose exclaimed: "After all beauty is but
_skin deep_."
"True," he replied, "but opinion is no deeper."
That one word revealed to her the state of his mind on the subject.
And although he often thought of Swift, Wilkes, Mirabeau, and other
hideous men celebrated for their successes with women; he more often
thought of the bright-eyed, hump-backed, gifted, witty, humble Pope,
who so bitterly expiated his presumption in raising his thoughts to
the lovely Mary Wortley Montague. If genius could not compensate for
want of beauty, how should he, who had no genius, not even shining
talents, succeed in making a woman pardon his ugliness?
That Julius was strangely in error you may easily suppose; but this
was perhaps the only crotchet of his honest upright mind. A truer,
manlier creature never breathed. He was carved from the finest clay
of humanity; and, although possessing none of those distinguished
talents which separate a few men from their contemporaries, and throw
a lustre over perhaps weak and unworthy natures, yet of no one that I
have ever known could I more truly say,--
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, This was a man!
To know him was to love him; it was more, it was to revere him.
There was something ennobling in his intercourse. You felt that all
he did and said sprang from the purest truth. He was utterly
unaffected, and won your confidence by the simple truthfulness of his
whole being. There was perhaps as little of what is supposed to
captivate women in his person and manner as in any man I ever knew;
but, at the same time, I never knew a man so calculated to make a
wife adore him. In a word--he could not flirt, but he could love.
The reader will be at no loss to discover the reason of certain
doubts and hesitations on his part respecting Rose, with whom he was
greatly charmed, and of whom he was also greatly afraid. The very
vivacity which allured, alarmed him. She was so bright, so
brilliant, that he was afraid to trust his heart in her keeping, lest
she should be as giddy as she was gay; and, above all, lest she
should scorn the mediocrity of such a man as he knew himself to be.
His first impulse was always to seek her society, to sun himself in
her eyes, to let his soul hold unrestrained communion with hers; but,
when he came to reflect on the delicious hours he had spent by her
side, he trembled lest they should be only luring him into an abyss
from which there would be no escape.
Early in life he had suffered bitterly from such a deception. He
fell in love with a beautiful and lively cousin of his, who, perhaps
from coquetry, perhaps from thoughtlessness, certainly exhibited such
signs of returning his affection, that he one day ventured to
overcome his timidity, and declared his passion. She only laughed at
him; and that very evening he heard her answer her mother's
remonstrances on the giddiness of her conduct towards him by saying,
"But, dear mama, who could have supposed that he was serious; the
idea of a woman marrying _him_."
"He is an excellent creature," said the mother.
"Perhaps so, but you must confess he is very ugly."
Julius heard no more; it was a girl of sixteen in all her
thoughtlessness who spoke, but those words were never effaced from
his memory.
The truth is, Rose was as saucy as youth, beauty, and uncontrollable
spirits could make her, and the general impression she made on men
was, that of being too _flirty_ and giddy for love.
Julius was fishing that day with no sport but in the chase of his own
fantastic thoughts; which every philosophic fisherman must admit is
part of the great pleasure in throwing out the line. People wonder
what amusement can be found in fishing, and Dr. Johnson's definition
is thought triumphant; but if they will allow one of the most
unskilful anglers that ever handled a rod to answer, I would say,
that when you have good sport, it is a pleasant excitement, and when
you catch nothing, it is a most dulcet mode of meditating. You sit
in the boat or stand on the bank: the river runs gently and equably
before you; the float wanders with it; and the current of your
thoughts is undisturbed.
No sport did Julius have that day; not a single "run;" but as a
compensation he was joined by Rose herself, who had been to visit
Mrs. Fletcher, the schoolmistress, to encourage the children.
"How is it," said Rose, "Mr. Ashley is not with you? Does he not
indulge in this gentle sport? or is he too tender-hearted? for it is
monstrously cruel you know!"
"Marmaduke is not calm enough in his temperament for anything so
sedate as fishing; and I doubt whether he would think much of any
sporting less exciting than a tiger hunt, or perhaps a boar hunt.
What do you think of him?"
"I don't think at all of him. In one evening I am not able to form
an opinion of any one; at least," checking herself, "not often. He
didn't say anything remarkably brilliant, did he?"
"Brilliant! No."
"The only part of his conversation I remember is what he related of
you and your side of bacon. I liked his manner of telling that. It
was in a tone of real friendship."
"Yes, Marmaduke has a regard for me. But don't you think him
superbly handsome?"
"I don't like handsome men."
This was said with perfect unaffectedness; but he raised his eyes
quickly, and gave her just such a look as she remembered him to have
given her once before, when they were talking of Leopardi, and it
embarrassed her. Indeed, said to an ugly man, this had an equivocal
sound: it was either a sarcasm or a declaration.
"You are singular, then," was his quiet reply.
"Why singular, in preferring brains to beauty? Are we women really,
do you think, the children we are said to be, and only fit to be
amused with dolls? That is not like your usual respect for our sex!"
"Come, come, you do not state the case fairly. The question is not,
whether you or your sex prefer beauty to brains, but whether you
prefer beauty to ugliness? It is curious to notice how this question
is always confused in this way, by mixing up with it an element that
does not properly belong to it. People say, 'Oh, a clever plain man
before a handsome fool!' and then argue, as if all the plain men were
necessarily clever, and all the handsome men imperatively fools."
"Well, I'm sure, handsome men generally are--not, perhaps, fools--but
certainly not clever; they think of nothing but their beauty. Their
beauty--the frights!"
"I cannot agree with you. Running over the list of great men you
will find the proportion greatly in favour of handsome men; which,
when you come to reflect how few handsome men there are compared to
the thousands of ugly men, is the more striking. The reason I take
to be this: these men, from their very intellectual greatness, must
have had great beauty of expression, so that with features a little
better than ordinary they would rank among the handsome. It may be
said, indeed, that very fine organizations include genius and beauty."
"Oh!" she replied, laughing, "if I once get into an argument with
you, you'll make out anything. But I won't be browbeaten by logic:
'hang up philosophy!' as Benedict says. I'm as difficult to be
reasoned out of my convictions as if I were a logician myself. I
_don't_ like handsome men, I have said it; nor shall you reason me
into liking them."
"Very well, very well. I certainly have no cause to wish it."
"Except the love of victory in argument, eh?"
"The victory must be on my side; it is gained already. If two men
equal in talent and goodness, but greatly unequal in appearance, were
placed before you, the handsomer must excite the preference, and that
is all our cause of battle amounts to."
"Oh, men, men! how you _will_ argue!"
At this moment they were joined by Marmaduke, who was all anxiety
about the private theatricals; not for themselves, but because he saw
in them an excellent excuse for being constantly at the Hall, and in
Violet's society.
With his usual impetuosity Marmaduke had already settled that Violet
should be his wife. Love at first sight, which may be a fiction with
regard to the colder children of the north, is no fiction with regard
to such passionate natures as his; and he was in love with Violet,
without seeking to disguise it. Indeed, he spoke in such raptures of
her to Rose, that she smiled and looked significantly at Julius, who
returned her glance, and confirmed her suspicions.