Julius St. John had not a person corresponding to the beauty of his name. Do not, my pretty reader, turn away your head; do not shrug your shoulders; do not skip the next page or so, because truth bids me inform you Julius was remarkably plain. I would have him handsome if I could. You may believe me, for I am perhaps a greater worshipper of beauty than you are; but it is, nevertheless, true, that I am now going to demand your admiration for a young man, who is undisguisedly, unequivocally plain. Not ugly—ugliness implies meanness, or moral deformity—yet absolutely without any feature which could redeem him from being familiarly called "a fright." Strikingly plain is the proper expression; so striking as, perhaps, to be the next best thing to beauty, from the force of the impression created. No one ever forgot his face. No one could casually perceive it without having the gaze arrested for a moment. Let me hasten to add, that the effect was almost repulsive, it was so powerful. I add this, lest you should suppose that I am going to trifle with the truth, and to soften my description by certain intimations of an expression of such exquisite sweetness and such delicate sensibility—such ideality—or such intellectual fire illuminating his face, that to all intents and purposes, my plain hero becomes a handsome man. No, reader, no; while I am perfectly aware that some plain features are rendered handsome by the expression, I am also aware that some faces—and the faces of very noble creatures—are irredeemably plain; and such was Julius St. John's. Judge:—
A head of enormous size was set upon the miserable shoulders of a diminutive body, which, though not deformed, was so thin and small, that an energetic deformity would have been preferable. This head was covered with a mass of black, crisp, curly hair, which fell carelessly over a massive but irregular forehead, ornamented with two thick eyebrows, which, meeting over the nose, formed but one dark line. The eyes that looked underneath these were bright, but small. They looked through you; but what they expressed themselves it was seldom easy to guess. The nose was insignificant; the mobility of the nostrils alone attracted attention to it. The mouth was large—not ill-cut—but the lips full and sensual. The chin large; firmly, boldly cut. The complexion dark and spotted.
These features were not even redeemed by the look of a gentleman, or the look of an artist. Common he did not look, nor vulgar, but striking; and, on the whole, repulsive. The best point about him was his consciousness of his ill looks, and the freedom from any coxcombical effort to disguise it. He did not bring out his ugliness into relief by a foolish attention to dress, as most ugly men do. He was neither a dandy nor a sloven. That he was a "fright" he knew, and accepted his fate with manliness.
"Have you been looking at those?" he said to Rose, as he sank into the chair by her side, and pointed to the table on which the inventions were laid. "Perhaps you can explain them to me?"
"No, indeed, not I. I never understand anything of that sort."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously! it's very stupid, I know; but I am stupid. What I am able to understand it would, perhaps, be difficult to say; but there can be no hesitation in excluding everything like science or manufactures. They are my detestation."
"Whisper it not in Gath!" he said, with mock horror. "Only conceive where you are!"
"Very much out of place; but mama has a fancy for coming here, and we are obliged to like it."
"Well, it is a comfort for me to find some one as ignorant as myself. Everybody here is so alarmingly instructive. I find nobody ignorant of anything but their own ignorance. Even the young ladies have attended Faraday, and the Friday evenings at the Royal Institution, till——"