University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.
FROM A HOMELY MAN.

Dear Plain Dealer,—I am a plain
man, and there is a melancholy fitness
in my unbosoming my sufferings to the
“Plain” Dealer. Plain as you may be
in your dealings, however, I am convinced
you never before had to deal with a
correspondent so hopelessly plain as I.
Yet plain don't half express my looks.
Indeed I doubt very much whether any
word in the English language could be
found to convey an adequate idea of my
absolute and utter homeliness. The dates
in the old family Bible show that I am
in the decline of life, but I cannot recall
a period in my existence when I felt really
young. My very infancy, those brief
months when babes prattle joyously and
know nothing of care, was darkened by

a shadowy presentiment of what I was
to endure through life, and my youth
was rendered dismal by continued repetitions
of a fact painfully evident “on the
face of it,” that the boy was growing
homelier and homelier every day. Memory,
that with other people recalls so
much that is sweet and pleasant to think
of in connection with their youth, with
me brings up nothing but mortification,
bitter tears, I had almost said curses, on
my solitary and homely lot. I have wished
—a thousand times wished—that Memory
had never consented to take a seat “in this
distracted globe.”

You have heard of a man so homely
that he couldn't sleep nights, his face
ached so. Mr. Editor, I am that melancholy
individual. Whoever perpetrated
the joke—for joke it was no doubt intended
to be—knew not how much truth
he was uttering, or how bitterly the idle
squib would rankle in the heart of one
suffering man. Many and many a night
have I in my childhood laid awake thinking
of my homeliness, and as the moonlight

has streamed in at the window and fell
upon the handsome and placid features
of my little brother slumbering at my
side, God forgive me for the wicked
thought, but I have felt an almost unconquerable
impulse to forever disfigure
and mar that sweet upturned innocent
face that smiled and looked so beautiful
in sleep, for it was ever reminding me of
the curse I was doomed to carry about me.
Many and many a night have I got up in
my night-dress, and lighting my little lamp,
sat for hours gazing at my terrible ugliness
of face reflected in the mirror, drawn to it
by a cruel fascination which it was impossible
for me to resist.

I need not tell you that I am a single
man, and yet I have had what men call
affairs of the heart. I have known what
it is to worship the heart's embodiment
of female loveliness, and purity, and truth,
but it was generally at a distance entirely
safe to the object of my adoration. Being
of a susceptible nature I was continually
falling in love, but never, save with one
single exception, did I venture to declare

my flame. I saw my heart's palpitator
walking in a grove. Moved by my consuming
love I rushed towards her, and
throwing myself at her feet began to
pour forth the long pent-up emotions of
my heart. She gave one look and then
at least you'd thought they replied if you
had seen me leave that grove with a speed
greatly accelerated by a shower of rocks
from the hands of an enraged brother, who
was at hand. That prepossessing young
lady is now slowly recovering her reason
in an institution for the insane.

Of my further troubles I may perhaps
inform you at some future time.