that Beauty is after all no positive entity, no gift or quality capable of demonstration, and easy of reference to the "sensible and tried avouch" of universal vision, but the merest matter of fantasy depending upon the ardor of a man's imagination or possibly the condition of his digestion. So it, doubtless, is in the majority of cases; but even in those instances where it may be admitted to be patent to all beholders, what is its value? To say that Beauty is here to-day and gone to-morrow, were to exaggerate the term of its duration. It is here to-day and gone to-day-"the perfume and suppliance of a minute." "Fair is the lily, fair The rose, of flowers the eye; Their beauteous colors die." So it fares with Beauty ever-of all creatures under the sun assuredly the most fallacious and evanescent. And the mischief of it is that, not content with being a sham herself, Beauty has a fatal tendency to make a sham of everybody who has anything to do with her. What women have we not met who would be delightful, but that they are beautiful and know it! What men have we not had the misfortune at times to converse with who have been transformed from good fellows into intolerable coxcombs by reason of the adulation which, in consideration of their beauty, they receive at the hands of women! Of all the despicable counterfeits who ever libelled humanity the most despicable is assuredly a ladies' man. Belonging to neither sex, it is the pest and reproach of both. And all because of its beauty. A man has a privilege to be ugly, and though it be true 66 enough, as Madame de Stael wittily observed to Curran, that "he should not abuse his privilege"-as Curran did most outrageously,—it were better that a man should be ugly as Thersites than that being beautiful as Narcissus he should also be as big a fool. For my own part I am free to confess -as they used to say in parliament long ago, that I am never comfortable in the same room with a Beautiful man. I always feel inclined to punch his head. Such is the demoralizing influence of Beauty, a sorceress who living but for an hour manages to concentrate within that tiny span sins enough for centuries-inveigling all hearts, bamboozling all intellects, and turning all brains "the seamy side without," like the wit of honest Iago. So much for Beauty; and now for Ugliness. There are two qualities about Ugliness which compel my profound respect. The one is her downright honesty; the other is her adamantine durability. There is no humbug about Ugliness. No! there are no two ways about Ugliness. She provokes no controversy. She is not a matter of taste but of fact. Taste is out of court. Ugliness stands confessed for what she is, and all men are of accord in her regard. Her sheer integrity brooks no equivocation. Ugliness is ugly, and there an end. She wears no mask; she sails under no false colors; she presents herself for what she is, and as the jugglers say, "there is no deception." Ugliness is thoroughly respectable, and however she may be disliked she cannot be despised. "Beauty is only skin deep," as all the world knows; but Ugliness goes to the bone. "Handsome is that handsome does" is the consolatory maxim of the ill-favored all the world over, but the Beauty of the beautiful dwells only in fancy. Then, again, look at Part the permanence of Ugliness. See how it wears. from a beautiful man and go abroad for eight or ten years. Come back at the end of that period, and you will look in vain for his beauty. It has vanished like snow before the sun. But bid an Ugly man good-bye and return to him after the lapse of a like period, and, by the Lord Harry, you'll find him ten times Uglier than you had left him. And so it is with ladies. How often does one hear that most melancholy of all reflections evoked by the sight of a woman once lovely, but whose loveliness is gone never to return: "How pretty she must have been when she was young!" What a sorrowful thought! If she had been ugly ab initio nobody would now mourn over the ruin of her beauty. People would say "Bless her heart! she improves in ugliness. I remember her a girl, and she was ordinary enough in all conscience, but now she is a Gorgon." Beauty goes off with youth like the bloom of a plum; but Ugliness endures like the stone. Truest of friends, it abides with its votaries all the days of their lives. There is no need of an unguent to make you ugly for ever. Once Ugly, you grow Uglier and more Ugly to the end of the chapter. And then consider the mental serenity of the Ugly. Of the many happy privileges enjoyed by the plain sisterhood, one of the happiest is the thought that they, at all events, are not responsible for the horrid feuds and execrable conflicts by which the peace of the world has been from time to time disturbed. Let the blue-eyed and the golden-tressed look to it; the Ugly have free souls, without fear and without reproach. At their doors lies no blood-guiltiness. Who ever yet heard of two friends fighting a duel, much more of two nations going to war, on account of an ugly woman? The very notion is preposterous. Nor can it be charged against the ill-favored that they are in any degree accountable for the sorrows and solicitudes which are incidental to matrimony. "Une femme laide est un homme pour moi”—an ugly woman is a man for mesays Théophile Gautier, and I am altogether of his way of thinking. I had as soon marry the Lord High Chancellor or the Commander of the Forces as an Ugly woman. It is too bad that men should have this prejudice; but they have, and there is no arguing against it. Yet some of the pleasantest people I have ever known, both men and women, have been and are as Ugly as if they had been bespoken. They know no change. It is a thing of Ugliness, not of Beauty, that is a joy forever. The very imputation of Ugliness has in it a charm which enthralls the imagination. Thus Lord Byron tells us that the only way to bring an exorbitant hackneycoachman to his senses is to look at him steadily between the eyes, and after carefully perusing his features to say, "Well! you are the Ugliest man that ever trod the earth." Cabby appreciates the compliment, owns the soft impeachment, and is content with his fare. Depend upon it to kalon is the one thing wrong in the world. The Ugly alone deserve admiration. One may admire an Ugly woman with such intensity of admiration that one would not dare to marry her. You, dear reader, are beautiful-I know you are; you will acquit me, therefore, of any intention to flatter you when I ask you whether some of the nicest, dearest, best persons you have ever met are not downright ugly? Of course they are! True, I know a man who is as Ugly as sin and not half as pleasant; but then he suffers from bunions, poor fellow, and in any case he is but the excep tion that proves the rule. It may be egotistical to say so, doubtless it is; but I have ever loved, and ever shall love, ugly people. Apart from the charms of their conversation, which has nothing of the frivolity that so often disgraces the talk of the Beautiful, I find a strange delight in perusing the features of the Ugly. There is intolerable monotony in a finely chiselled face. Its regularity is irksome to behold. The Ugly-and they alone are picturesque. Irregularity is to their lineaments what undulation is to a landscape, the key to that variety of outline which is all-essential to artistic effect. A fellow on whom Nature has graciously bestowed a turn-up nose bears about him the physical emblem of disdain, and always seems to be treating the world with the scorn and contempt of which the world is richly deserving. Beetle eyebrows call to mind a glossy, amiable insect; high cheek bones have a bold, majestic, clifflike look; a low forehead bespeaks the gentle virtue of humility; and a mouth that is like unto an oven resembles a very good thing. And then for eyes-why should eyes be fellows? Surely it is much more useful as well as ornamental that one eye should look to the west, the other to the east. I love a man with a squint "If ancient poets Argus prize, Who boasted of a hundred eyes; Who sees a hundred ways with two." As for figure, why should the human form be straight. Any poker may be straight. The line of beauty is a curve. Moreover, a friend in-kneed is a friend indeed! Taking into consideration this and many kindred facts, I am clearly of opinion that the time is come for reviv |