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We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight of her face, is an era in your existence ever after.
Neither can you say of it, that it would be a good face if it was not marked by the small pox a compliment which is always more admissive than excusatory for either Mrs. Conrady never had the small pox; or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it stands upon its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her mark, her token; that which she is known by. Nor a lady's age in the parish register.
Many fell, among them Fessenden with a bad hurt, the 165th New York found itself hindered by the marsh, but gallantly led on by Hubbard, by Conrady, and by Blanchard the 30th Maine, the 173d New York, and the 162d New York won the crest and opened fire on the retreating foe.
We detect gentleness, which had escaped us, lurking about an under lip. But when Mrs. Conrady has done you a service, her face remains the same; when she has done you a thousand, and you know that she is ready to double the number, still it is that individual face.
Conrady existed, or was invented or adapted by Lamb to prove his point, I have not been able to discover. But the evidence of Lamb's "reverence for the sex," to use Procter's phrase, is against her existence. The Athenæum reviewer on February 16, 1833, says, however, quoting the fallacy: "Here is a portrait of Mrs. Conrady.
All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady, in her pre-existent state, was no great judge of architecture. To the same effect, in a Hymn in honour of Beauty, divine Spenser, platonizing, sings: "Every spirit as it is more pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
For of the soul the body form doth take: For soul is form, and doth the body make." But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady. These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philosophy; for here, in his very next stanza but one, is a saving clause, which throws us all out again, and leaves us as much to seek as ever:
The whole brigade bore the searching test like good soldiers, yet conspicuous in steadiness under the shock and in prompt recovery were the 30th Maine and the 173d New York, inspired by the example and the leadership of Fessenden and of Conrady.
"Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd, Either by chance, against the course of kind, Or through unaptness in the substance found, Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, That will not yield unto her form's direction, But is perform'd with some foul imperfection." From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen somebody like Mrs. Conrady.
The impression, to be forcible, must be simultaneous and undivided. Those who use this proverb can never have seen Mrs. Conrady. The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from the celestial beauty. As she partakes more or less of this heavenly light, she informs, with corresponding characters, the fleshly tenement which she chooses, and frames to herself a suitable mansion.
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