Arizona weekly enterprise., 1882-02-18
4 TRUE HEROlAE.

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 "This would be jolly, Tom, if it wasn't for that miserable shanty just under our window, and those internally noisy urchins across the street, and" Don't expect, my dear boy, to se- cure all the beatitudes at rental of S20 per month"
 "And if you wasn't so everlastingly bearish, and"
 "What more, my dear fellow? Out with it."
 "And if that shy daughter of the landlady wasn't so frightfully ugly" "Well postscripted, Jack I knew all along where the chief objection lay" "Upon my soul, Tom, I believe you rented the rooms just because you thought her looks would annoy me.
 You compliment me undeservedly, my dear boy. I had not that much fore cast. But, now that you have suggested it, think I will adopt new method of torturing you. Tine great Aristotle inn bued his followers with philosophy while strolling about the groves and thoroughfares of Athens. Why should l not initiate the master of the peripa- tetic school, and make San Francisco lodgings a means of inculcating moral precepts upon your mind ?"
 "Good enough, Tom. But not such acknowledgements lessons, if you please"
 "All wholesome instruction, my dear Jack, is distasteful to the beginner. You will relish 1t more as you advance. D Never, Tom, never, if Miss Corbin is an average specimen of the studies proposed in your new system of object teaching"
 Don't speak so confidently, my dear boy. The future IS great gainsayer of thoughtless utterances. But, to inaug- urate the course, the school will please come to order. First class in moral phi losophy, attention /"
 " Ready, sir"
 "Why have you seen fit to speak oi the landladys daughter as & drawback to the iolity of orr present location ?'' Because she Is so terrifcally hideous, and because"
 " No generaliiies, sir. Answer me categorically. Exactness of definition was the great point for which Socrates contended. She has lovely hair-brown, sleek and tastefully arranged ?
 sYes."
 "Biue eyes of singular brilliancy and gentleness ?"
 "Yes."
 "Fine eyebrows and lashes. anc beautiful mouth and teeth?"
 "Yes."
 "An elegant figure-girlish, but sym metrical and well developed-and ad nirable hands and feet?"
 "Yes."
 "Taste in dress. grace in bearing. ant prepossessing voice and rnanner?"
 "Yes."
 "Then go to! If the total of thes be not loveliness, the world is decep tion."
 "But, Tom, did you ever see any on go fearfully pockmarked?"
 eff put to my mettle, Jack, you knoy never yielded the superlative to livinl man. Miss Corbins features have sea shell smoothness-a very gloss of tinisl compared with faces I have seen. have beheld countenances that tresemblet colander-yea. that were engrailet and corrugated like mass of conglom crate But, after all, it is only skin | deep. If the nature within be loveliness these surface blemishes may become a attractive to the eye as piece of orna mental fret-work." '"
 "I grant you, Tom, that Miss Corbil is homely enough to afford to be good.
 Perhaps she is good enough to af ford to be homely. At any rate, yoI were not born the censor of her or any body else's appearance. The face yol dislike may be comedy to others and t, the Creator. And, if not, remember my dear boy, that ugliness has hcens to exist in this world as well as beauty.
 "And I have right to express my opinion of it."
 And may have a reason to regre ever doing so. Thus endeth the tirs lesson. The class Is dismissed"
 Tom was awfully cynical sometimes but we were the best of friends, and liked him just as we'll as though he haf not keen twice as old as I was, anC crotchety and bald-headed beside
 We had chummed together for years and took adjoining rooms in privat residence on Russian Hill. It was dur ing the first weeks occupancy of ou new quarters, while smoking on tn veranda and looking out upon the moon lit bay, that the foregoing conversation occurred.
 *
 I had never seen Tom so moved by book as he appeared to be by @ volume h brought from the library one evening He fdgeted, and wiped his bald head s much, and uttered so many ex lama tions, that I finally asked him what h had come across to a9itate him so.
 "A most affecting story, my dea Jack, " he replied, "most affecting"
 "It must be, judging by your mar ner."
 If it would not disturb you, I shonl like to read 1t aloud.
 ''I shall be very glad 10 listen to i ] l ]. ! .l--