Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some share of the
comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied. Short, thick-set,
and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sinewy arms, heavy
features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of
thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on which the forest had once
more begun to encroach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of a
century ago, and such, with some modification, it is to this day.
Like Cain, I was branded--branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal
ugliness, as I was gifted by Nature with iron and abnormal strength and
considerable intellectual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce
young men of my College, though they were proud enough of my feats of
endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen walking
with me. Was it wonderful that I was misanthropic and sullen? Was it
wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had no friends--at least,
only one? I was set apart by Nature to live alone, and draw comfort
from her breast, and hers only. Women hated the sight of me. Only a week
before I had heard one call me a "monster" when she thought I was out
of hearing, and say that I had converted her to the monkey theory. Once,
indeed, a woman pretended to care for me, and I lavished all the pent-up
affection of my nature upon her. Then money that was to have come to me
went elsewhere, and she discarded me. I pleaded with her as I have never
pleaded with any living creature before or since, for I was caught by
her sweet face, and loved her; and in the end by way of answer she took
me to the glass, and stood side by side with me, and looked into it.

"Now," she said, "if I am Beauty, who are you?" That was when I was only
twenty.

And so I stood and stared, and felt a sort of grim satisfaction in the
sense of my own loneliness; for I had neither father, nor mother, nor