Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-03-24
THE ~ODD.LOOkING MAN.

1t is just thirty years to-day since we
were all seated at the table d'hote of a
fashionable hotel in Venice. "We,"
means my father, mother, sister and
myself. The two former are long since
departed this life. My sister, u young
lady travelling for educational purposes,
or, as old John Dickens would have said,
'to consolidate her modern languages
and music,' is now q wife and mother.
Ihad just finished my terms at Oxford;
and, as we all fancied we should benefit
by u change of air and scene, we set out
for a twefvemonth's continental tour.
In due season we reached Venice, where
I overheard the remark which suggested
the heading of the present article. Our
~vis-a-vis was an English clergyman,
with his family, whom we then met, for
the first time on our travels. The eldest
daughter, glancing stealthily at her OPP
posite neighbor, and with difficulty re-
enough in her fathers ear: "What a
stran%ge-looking young man chat is
facing u.s." Hereupon paterfamilias,
putting his quizzing glass to his eye,
and staring deliberately at the object of
the remark, exclaimed emphatically:
''He is indeed an odd-looking fe!low!n
The victim of these unfattering OBJ
servations ~wasanyself! I have always
been what a cockney would call "a rum
un to look at" Perhaps no other def
milton would suit me as well. 1 am not,
strictly speaking, "The Ugly Mani
neither am l "The Lean Man," sThe
Fat Man." sThe Short Man," or the
"Tall Man." My features, individually,
are neither plain nor unprepossessing.
Yet the ense1nble-ah! there is the rub!
There is a screw loose somewherep
Figuratively, the shoe plnches. But
had my misfortunes been confined to a
general popularity of appearance, I
should certainly have kept my own
counsel, and, so to speak, consumed
my WI smoke with the pipe of a phi
%losopher. But it was far mo than this.
Hereditary predisposition had be-
queathed to me q three-fold idiosyn-
Grassy. Speech, person and nervous or
ganization were alike out of tune. The
early consciousness Of these failings rem
dered me, from childhood, shy and SEN
sitive to a degree which more healthily
constituted persons could scarcely ven
imagine; as I grew to boyhood and
youth these feelings became more inten-
sitied, and when l had reached my
eighteenth year, was literally unable to
frequent places of public resort and
amusement, or ven to enjoy a quiet
walk, without undergoing positive tor
ture. My friends failed not to misjudge
me, and attributed to me, most unjustly,
a morose and misanthropical DISPOSE
ton. l was thus, by a sort of fatality,
deprived Of the natural sympathies and
counsel Of those who were nearest ana
dearest to me. In due season my school
days, which had been hourly torture to
me, whether in classroom or play
ground, came to an end. Impelled by
natural ambition, and complying with
the wishes Of my parents, | boldly re-
solved to risk the ordeal Of a university
life, with a faint hope-Heaven save the
mark!-of eventually embracing the
clerical profession. So | entered my
name at a college, and in due time pre-
sented myself for m~atriculation. Alas!
my amour propre was destined, at the
outset, to be rudely shaken. CHANGING
to encounter, beneath the gateway Of
my college, a merry group of my fellow,
gownsmen, n of them, cycling me
%askance, audibly expressed a hope that
"that odd-looking fellow didn't intend
to come there!" This was no fattering
welcome, on the part of Alma Mater, to
one SO sensitive and self-conscious as
myself.
But worse still was to follow. While
undergoing the preliminary examina'
ton in the college hall-of which, in
point of scholarship had little dread
one of my fellow-Freshmen remarked
to his neighbor: "Good heavens! did
you ever see such a phiz!" This
plunged the iron more deeply still into
my sore and stricken soul. 1t capped
the climax, as it were. Within less than
aweek | was forced to leave my col
iege, and all the fond and vain
hopes which my friends and myself had
built on my university career.
l now became desperate, and threw
myself into various forms of solitary
and %unsocial dissipation. Having in
herited. from distant relative, a small
ieOacV RI onahlo mo m foll0w some lin