Bildungsromans; England -- Fiction; Foundlings -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
The love of Miss Bridget was of another kind. The captain owed nothing
to any of these fop-makers in his dress, nor was his person much more
beholden to nature. Both his dress and person were such as, had they
appeared in an assembly or a drawing-room, would have been the
contempt and ridicule of all the fine ladies there. The former of
these was indeed neat, but plain, coarse, ill-fancied, and out of
fashion. As for the latter, we have expressly described it above. So
far was the skin on his cheeks from being cherry-coloured, that you
could not discern what the natural colour of his cheeks was, they
being totally overgrown by a black beard, which ascended to his eyes.
His shape and limbs were indeed exactly proportioned, but so large
that they denoted the strength rather of a ploughman than any other.
His shoulders were broad beyond all size, and the calves of his legs
larger than those of a common chairman. In short, his whole person
wanted all that elegance and beauty which is the very reverse of
clumsy strength, and which so agreeably sets off most of our fine
gentlemen; being partly owing to the high blood of their ancestors,
viz., blood made of rich sauces and generous wines, and partly to an
early town education.
Though Miss Bridget was a woman of the greatest delicacy of taste, yet
such were the charms of the captain's conversation, that she totally
overlooked the defects of his person. She imagined, and perhaps very
wisely, that she should enjoy more agreeable minutes with the captain
than with a much prettier fellow; and forewent the consideration of
pleasing her eyes, in order to procure herself much more solid
satisfaction.
The captain no sooner perceived the passion of Miss Bridget, in which
discovery he was very quick-sighted, than he faithfully returned it.
The lady, no more than her lover, was remarkable for beauty. I would
attempt to draw her picture, but that is done already by a more able
master, Mr Hogarth himself, to whom she sat many years ago, and hath
been lately exhibited by that gentleman in his print of a winter's
morning, of which she was no improper emblem, and may be seen walking
(for walk she doth in the print) to Covent Garden church, with a
starved foot-boy behind carrying her prayer-book.
The captain likewise very wisely preferred the more solid enjoyments
he expected with this lady, to the fleeting charms of person. He was
one of those wise men who regard beauty in the other sex as a very
worthless and superficial qualification; or, to speak more truly, who
rather chuse to possess every convenience of life with an ugly woman,
than a handsome one without any of those conveniences. And having a
very good appetite, and but little nicety, he fancied he should play
his part very well at the matrimonial banquet, without the sauce of
beauty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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