I was the youngest but one of a large family, of whom the daughters were remarkable for their personal beauty, while the sons, of whom I was the last, graduated in plainness that was all but repulsive. This peculiarity, by which the beauty was given to the girls and the plainness to the boys, had been in the family for generations; and, both in uncles and aunts and cousins of either sex, is still discernible at the time I write.

But that which, in my own case, made this personal deformity an additional misfortune, was the fact, that, along with my ugliness, I had inherited a most sensitive disposition. And as there are never wanting persons to speak of a child’s deficiencies even in its very presence, I soon became aware of my defects. Not being precocious, I was looked upon as more stupid than I was in fact; while the real ability I possessed was altogether unsuspected. Often indeed the gibes and jeers of my beautiful sisters, and the rough remarks of my less ugly brothers, cut my childish soul to the quick. My small, flat, squab nose was in everybody’s mouth. I was told of it twenty times a day. Whoever wanted something to do, found instant employment in twitting me on the subject of this unlucky feature. I was never allowed to forget it; and often have I stood in the midst of a circle roaring with laughter at my expense. The natural result followed: from being naturally over-sensitive, I became only too keenly alive to the supposed opinions of others. In church I sat with my head rigidly fixed on my shoulders, turning myself neither to the right hand nor to the left, lest the persons behind me should catch a glimpse of my unlovely profile. I looked straight before me like an arrow; and on leaving my seat, as I went down the aisle and had to face my enemies and critics, I would hold my cap up to my eyes, and endeavor to pass demurely by, with nose unobserved.

Nor was my poor little nose my only cause of annoyance, for my face was large and splay, my complexion was muddy and pale, and the color of my eyes was a washed-out green. The space too between my nose and upper lip was long and protuberant, and my lips themselves were in full bloom like those of a negro. Indeed, the only thing in my favor, as regards personal appearance, was my hair, which was of a glossy auburn, and curled naturally in profusion. But this, my only redeeming feature, I was unacquainted with at the time. In my ignorance (for though often told of my faults, I never, as a child, heard myself praised), I even looked upon this propensity in my hair to curl as a positive misfortune, inasmuch as my friends informed me that it always appeared unkempt and wild, and therefore I naturally thought it an addition to my defects. Oh, how I envied the oiled and trim locks of my companions, which showed no such erratic tendency as mine; and in the agony of my mind I often had recourse to the hairdresser, who, at my directions, cut off close each offending curl, and sent me home shorn. But, alas! my triumph was but short. Sisters and brothers crowded round me soon, and proclaimed that my large inanimate face only looked larger and more inanimate still; while aunts and mother dismissed me from their presence with the observation that I was now a perfect fright.

Such, then, was the one thought uppermost in my childish mind. I had a strong faith in my own ugliness. Happy days and hours I had, as all healthy children will have. I frolicked and played; and being naughty as well as ugly, I was often whipped; while my pretty little sister, the youngest of us all, being pretty as well as naughty, was only scolded and warned. However, no punishment I ever received (and I had many) hurt me so much as the oft-recurring, never-long-absent reflection, that Nature, when she turned me out of her mint, had impressed me with her strongest stamp of ugliness. Nay, when at times a child’s party was given at our house, and little neighbors came to see us for a few hours, I was quick at observing how that none of them took to me. If a game were proposed, I was always assigned the lowest place in it. If others were kings and queens, I was only a servant and a slave; and when others were captains and admirals, I was a common sailor; and on one occasion, which I well remember, I was degraded to the position of powder-monkey. It seemed indeed by universal, tacit consent that I should be thus used; and in my own secret little heart I attributed the cause to my ugliness. Often while I joined in the game and shouted my utmost, I was in reality sad and disheartened; and have more than once climbed a tree and hid myself in its topmost branches, while the sport proceeded in the garden below, and my absence was unnoticed.

Thus it was that my childhood fled away, till, as time progressed, the evil became more serious. Having been so often rebuffed and humiliated, I lost all ambition to excel. Insensibly I acquiesced in the idea that I was in all points inferior to others, and that no efforts of my own could ever raise me to their level. My friends now not only called me ugly, but stupid. My plain elder brother was undeniably clever. My plainer second brother was shrewd, but I was both the ugliest and stupidest of all. At first I wept at this double discovery. I then grew content at being at the bottom of my class at school. My master held me up to ridicule (the rascal has since been made a bishop), and that, too, not only because I was backward and idle, for in these respects I richly deserved his blame; but, alas! for poor human nature so apt to be biased by mere externals, because I was ugly. I felt at the time that, had I not been so very plain, my being a dunce would have been more overlooked. I saw good-looking dunces in the class with me, who were easily pardoned; but I was an ugly dunce, and therefore was ridiculed and punished. This treatment made me sullen. At last I never cared to work at all. I copied my exercises and blundered over my translations so much, that the master grew tired of hearing me, and would often pass me over entirely—a course that pleased me exceedingly, and only confirmed me in my idleness. I was called stupid, and I became stupid; and I discovered, till I half became a little misanthrope, that the ugliness for which I was bantered at home, caused me also to be treated with greater harshness for my faults at school.

Nor was it my enforced stupidity alone that thus gave the sting to my plainness, but my poverty. My father was very badly off. I wore my elder brothers’ old clothes, which were too large for me. I assumed, I recollect, on one occasion one of their cast-off hats, and it overshadowed me completely. My well-dressed school-fellows christened me Guy Fawkes on account of my frumpish attire: and one of them, kinder than the rest, came to me one day when I was all alone, and told me he was sorry for me. This last incident completed my humiliation. I did not weep but I kept very silent for a day or two. I entered into no sports. I walked apart and thought of my ugliness, my stupidity, my poverty; nor was it till a week or more had passed away that I regained my usual spirits.

Shortly after the above-mentioned events, when I was about fourteen years of age, my poor father began to think seriously of the future career of his ugly bantling. And now a fresh sorrow awaited me. My acquirements were so small, my manners and appearance so unprepossessing, that there was great difficulty in deciding on my future course. “Come here, Jack,” said my father one day to me. “Can you read well?” “No,” he answered for me. “Can you write well?” “No,” he said again. “Can you cast accounts well?” “No,” he replied once more. “You can do nothing well, but take birds’ nests. I don’t know at all what is to become of you.”

On hearing these words, poor Jack left the room very much crestfallen; and quite agreed with his father, that he did not at all know what was to become of him, being both the ugliest and stupidest of his family. “Send him to college, father, and make a clergyman of him,” suggested an amiable and compassionate sister, thinking more of her brother’s feelings than the Church’s interests. This last speech of hers I overheard, as I was disappearing through the doorway, with the additional words: “Perhaps he may just pass through, without being absolutely plucked.”

Since the above-mentioned scenes, years have passed away and a great change has come over me. I have already said more than once that I was a backward boy, and very lazy over my books. About the age of sixteen years, however, a visible alteration took place in this respect. At the suggestion of a sister (a suggestion indeed half made in fun), I was induced to try my hand at writing verses. At first I refused, being quite aghast at such a daring proposal; but on the request being repeated, I complied. Then it was that I caught the first sound of praise my ugly ears had ever heard yet. She and I were both alike surprised. I could not believe that I had composed the poem out of my own stupid head. I read it over and over again, and each time with increasing wonder. I was actually startled at myself, while the pleasing idea stole into my mind that I was not so great a fool after all.

Nor did the matter end there. The verses were taken to another sister, and were praised by her in turn. My second brother also, who saw them next, declared boldly that they were not mine; or if they were, must have been made up of odds and ends by some unconscious trick of the memory. The answer was easy: I knew no poetry, and therefore the idea of plagiarism had no grounds to rest upon. And this last consideration made my triumph complete. My intellectual being awoke from its long slumber, and sprang at once into conscious life. Poetry became a passion. I read all I could lay my hands upon. I composed and filled volumes with my own lucubrations; my spirit within me yearned under the burden of a thousand new and contending romantic emotions; and while I continued busily my classical studies (for about this time it was settled that I should go to college), I read and wrote much in addition, and was never idle for a single moment.

Still, though the first step had thus been taken in the right direction, much remained to be done. When alone with my books, I felt and enjoyed the freedom I had acquired. I no longer looked on myself as below my fellow-men, but recognized my birthright of intellectual power, and delighted in the exercise of it. The case, however, was different when I was with strangers, or even with members of my own family. Immediately the fancied giant slunk back again into the stunted dwarf. The fault of my education came over me like a cloud. The lesson that had been drilled into me so early was not to be easily eradicated; and the consequence was, that, while my indignant spirit secretly rebelled at my own cowardice, I was obliged to submit with a good grace, and cut but a poor figure in the eyes of my companions and fellow-students.

Nor did this proud diffidence lose in intensity when I was introduced into the little world of academical life. The same fault haunted me still; and keeping aloof from others, I not only forfeited many advantages, but likewise ran the risk, incurred by all solitary men, of increasing selfishness and egotism. Circumstances, however, in some degree broke down this barrier to freedom of intercourse with others, which unwise friends had unconsciously helped to raise; and though I had a small but select circle of acquaintances, my evil genius was still with me; and I finally left the university, having missed much it was calculated to teach.

My next experience dates from the time when I found myself a curate in a large manufacturing town. All my old troubles began over again. When I stood up in public, my sensitiveness came back to me with tenfold force. The thought of my extreme ugliness, the recollection of my ridiculously little and flat nose, overwhelmed me with confusion. I was keenly alive to the ludicrous: and hence the picture I involuntarily drew of myself wounded my vanity in the extreme. My first appearance in the desk was formidable. I was miserable. My poor little nose, through intense self-consciousness, actually ached on my face. If I caught the full glance of an eye, I suspected at once that it was fixed on that particular feature; and I had by an express effort to call all my reasoning powers together to lay this ghost of my own morbid fancy.

This extreme sensitiveness, however, soon began to wear off. I made up my mind to be ugly; and the strong brotherhood I felt with many others in this respect came to the aid of my philosophy.

But there was a worse evil, which was not so soon overcome. Having been for so many years of my life looked upon as stupid, I was now seized again with that distrust of self which I had once so nearly shaken off. It seriously crippled my usefulness; and I had the mortification to see others, with half my abilities and acquirements, but more self-reliant, occupy positions with applause where I was compelled to be silent. The struggle in my heart was very bitter; and if at last I did break through the trammels in some degree, it was not till many a wasted year had flown, and many a golden opportunity had gone by forever.

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.

But before I close, I have one more confession to make after all. I never see a very good nose to this day without thinking of my own bad one, and envying for the moment the more fortunate possessor. To this day also, I am somewhat shy both in public and in private, and can not wholly get over that nervous regard for the opinions of others, which my unwise training has only served to increase. This defect in my character has hindered my advancement in life. My little nose has prevented me from being a big man. God, however, has richly blessed me in many ways. I have a nice parish, a pleasant vicarage, a good wife and a large family. Many kind friends, too, have gathered around me, and assure me of increasing usefulness. Yet my one great fault of intense self-consciousness haunts me still, mars my enjoyment, unnerves me often in the very moment of action, and makes me feel every day the evil brought upon a too sensitive disposition, when defects, whether physical or mental, are made a theme for ridicule and banter, without regard to the present pain and future loss such a course is only too sure to entail.—Temple Bar.

A missionary steamer, whose hull and machinery weigh only six tons, is now moored in the Thames, in London. The vessel is named “Peace,” and has been built for the Baptist Missionary Society, who destine it for the service of the mission in the upper reaches of the Congo River. The boat can be taken to pieces readily for transport purposes, and the total number of pieces, none of which would be too heavy for a man to carry, would be 800. The greatest possible use has been made of all available space, and the two cabins are admirably fitted. A kitchen adapted for a stove and other cooking appliances forms part of the equipment. A substantial awning covers the deck, and between this and the sides of the vessel a wire awning is fitted to stop arrows and other missiles. It is intended to take the steamer to pieces and pack the sections in boxes, which will be sent to the mouth of the Congo. From thence they will be borne by 800 men a distance of 300 miles up to Stanley Pool, where the steamer will be reconstructed by missionaries.