Like all other young men too, I fell in love, and then the thought of my ugliness came down on me like a thunderbolt. Of course the young lady was perfection, and her nose a thorough contrast to my own. The fact that ugly men often obtained beautiful wives was very consoling, I allow; and I often ran over in my own mind a list of all the plain men I knew who were married to lovely women. Still my own ugliness distressed me, and I began in consequence an awkward and unwieldy flirtation. I tried to be agreeable, but my shyness prevailed; and I generally ended by making some blunder, such as plunged me in disgrace. Then a period of silence and distance would ensue, at which the fair object of my affections was visibly piqued and puzzled; and, as was but natural, soon let me feel her anger and annoyance. Then immediately, with the proverbial inconsistency of a lover, I forgot my own conduct that had caused the alteration in her manner, and attributed the change to a rooted dislike of my person. And so at last we separated; and a happier rival appeared, who carried her off at once, and wears the flower to this day. After this event I began to look upon myself as a confirmed bachelor. No woman, I thought would ever take me, who have no gold to gild my ugliness; and I grew almost contented with my solitude. But Providence ordered it otherwise. This is not a love story, but a true tale; and when I learnt from the lips of her I love best, some months after marriage, that the honesty and intelligence, written on my face, threw a veil over its ugliness and almost glorified my insignificant and troublesome nose, I felt, and I still feel, that if all the world thinks me ugly, I am perfectly content with the verdict; and if most men have better noses than myself, there are many without my share of intellect and sense; or else with all their various defects, they have no warm-hearted wife like mine, to love and admire them for the few good qualities they possess.