The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
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 on 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, Heaven 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
nightdress, 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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