Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-01-17
Lovely Women Who Marry Ugly Men

There was, perhaps, as much truth
as boasting in the statement of John
Wilkes, the famous London Alderman
and champion of British electors:
ugly as I am, if 1 can have but
quarter of an hours start, l will get
the better of any man, however good
looking, in the graces of any woman.
OF Wilkes abnormal ugliness there
was never any question, for is it not
recorded that the very children in
the street ran away afrighted at the
sight of him." And yet his powers of
fascination were so great that ladies
of beauty and fashion wed with each
other for his notice, while men of hand
some exterior and all courtly graces
looked enviously on"
There were, it is said, few beauties of
the day whose hand Wilkes might not
have confidently hoped to win; and
when he led Mary Mead to the altar
he made a wife of one of the richest
and most lovely women Of her time.
+" Beauty and Beast they call u.s.
Wilkes once said to his friend Potter;
land cannot honestly find fault with
the description"
Jean Paul Marat, whose name will
always be associated with the evil his
tory of the French Revolution, was
VIGOROUSLY the ugliest man of his day
in Paris. When this reputation
reached his ears. Marat is said to
have remarked, But why limit my
supremacy to Paris?"-and, indeed,
the restriction was much too modest.
And yet in his earlier years, when he
was the most popular of court doctors,
his very uglness seemed to exercise
such fascination over aristocratic
ladies that they crowded his consulting
rooms in order to catch a glimpse of
and to exchange words with him under
the flimsiest pretexts of imaginary all
ments.
The studied indifference with which
he treated alike their charms and their
flattery only made them the more in
sistent, until he declared to friend
that he would have to fly from Paris
to escape the persecution of his fair
admirers.
Although there were few palmer
men of his generation than the great
Lord Brougham, and as few who took
so little trouble to ingratiate them
selves into the favor of women, the
brilliant lawyer and statesman might
at one time have picked and chosen
among the fairest of society beauties.
No man who cared so little for female
society had surely ever so much of it
thrust upon him-to such an extent,
indeed. that when any one asked
where Lord Brougham was, the usual
answer was. Where the ladies are
| thickest." and by following this sig
nificant guide he was generally run to
earth.
Among so many fair wooers it is
little to be wondered at that Brough-
am succumbed at last-to the charms
of Mrs. Spalding, widow who added
a charming wit to an Incompatible
person.
That there Is powerful fascination
for some women in extreme ugliness is
proved by innumerable cases in which
women who have been richly lowered
with physical charms have fallen mad
ly in love with men Of almost repulsive
appearance.
The Times records a remarkable
case Of this kind in 1877, when Lady
Mary x married Mr.. Mudford, II
London attorney. Lady Mary was
girl of peerless charms, the most
beautiful of all the court ladies, and
the favorite toast of the world Of aris-
tocrats. She might-for her berth and
! fortune were almost equal to her beauty
have chosen her husband from among
dukes, and even more than one royal
prince sought her hand in vain.
! To the CONSERVATION Of society, she
married in Mr.. Mudford not only "a
i pettifogging attorney" but a man of
almost preternatural ugliness of face
and with deformed hand and foot.
| Singular, too. as it may appear, her
married life was one of unclouded
happiness, and to her dying day, near