Yet all the same there is an excellent reason why one should shun beauty in a prospective wife, at anyrate obvious beauty--the kind of beauty people talk about, and which gets into the photographers' windows. The common beautiful woman has a style of her own, a favourite aspect. After all, she cannot be perfect. She comes upon you, dazzles you, marries you; there is a time of ecstasy. People envy you, continue to envy you. After a time you envy yourself--yourself of the day before yesterday. For the imperfection, the inevitable imperfection--in one case I remember it was a smile--becomes visible to you, becomes your especial privilege. That is the real reason. No beauty is a beauty to her husband. But with the plain woman--the thoroughly plain woman--it is different. At first--I will not mince matters--her ugliness is an impenetrable repulse. Face it. After a time little things begin to appear through the violent discords: little scraps of melody--a shy tenderness in her smile that peeps out at you and vanishes, a something that is winning, looking out of her eyes. You find a waviness of her hair that you never saw at the beginning, a certain surprising, pleasing, enduring want of clumsiness in part of her ear. And it is yours. You can see she strikes the beholder with something of a shock; and while the beauty of the beauty is common for all the world to rejoice in, you will find in your dear, plain wife beauty enough and to spare; exquisite--for it is all your own, your treasure-trove, your safely-hidden treasure....