BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3012, 19 February 1881, Page 4

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

This is what the husband of a professional beauty professes to say for himself in a letter written to Vanity Fair: —

Sir'—l have read with much amusement the letters which you have printed under the heading ' The Troubles of a Pretty woman' the last of which may or may not have been written by my wife. I do not know, but then she does not tell me all she does, and having implicit confidence in her, I never ask her any questions. It is true she never answers them if I do, but she is tremendously clever. I am the husband of what you call a " professional beauty, " and, though you are continually mentioning her name in your paper, lam not going to tell you what it is, but I am going to tell you my view of the case. You see when I married my wife she was quiet a little country girl, who had never been in London in her life; and country dances in the winter, with an archery or crocket party very soldom in the summer were all the dissipation she ever got. She was very badly dressed ; but my artistic sense was taken with her beauty in spite of that, and I proposed to her mamma, and then to her. I must say she consented with very little trouble. I think she was rather tired of her life, and as she has always remained devoted to me I have no doubt she liked me even then. I had about £1100 a year, and, as she had nothing, we began life on that — at first in the country and at the sea, but then we oeme to London, where in the beginning we were rather dull; but I enjoyed taking her to the theatres, and that sort of thing. Then, all of a sudden, we began to get invited to houses I had never heard of. It amused me a good deal, but I have always had the knack of getting on with every one, and "my wife could take her part, so I was not surprised that people had begun to find us an agreeable couple. Later on, people began to squabble as to who first (what they called) "discovered" us, and the contest was very strong between a fashionable artist, an elderly peer (who is always a good joke to me, with his wig and his old-fashioned airs to my wife), a lion-hunting lady, and an aesthetic young man with long hair, who lisps. Put none of them did anything of the sort, as we can"- cut in society in quite a natural way, and without any "discovering." I remember that at first my wife had very few dresses, and it rather vexed her ; but she is a skilful manager, and she soon had a wonderful collection of them; and, though we got a little in debt, she can always satisfy her creditors with what I give her, or get them to wait. She learned how other ladies manage on small incomes, and the result is that we have a first-rate cook, and give charming little dinners ; we have a brougham, a victoria, and three horses, and all sorts of other little luxuries on our old income. It is true, I have won a little money, and she now and then makes a bet, which I don't quite like; but she always wins, and she once won a most lovely necklace, taking very long odds about what I knew to be a certainty; it was very clever of her, and as the man who lost the bet was very rich it was all right; he did not mind it at all, and has continued to be one of her greatest friends, and i 3 always ready to take care of my wife when I want to go on some little expedition of my own. At first I confess I was rather amazed at your calling my wife a ' professional beauty,' but she has quite satisfied me that it is a compliment and nothing disrespectful, so I think your letter from one of them, saying she does not object to the term, quite right. Your pretty woman is a silly womaa, and does not know how to please people. My wife does, and she never does any of the fast things which she says the successful ones do ; in fact, I sometimes wonder that men go on liking her after the way she snubs them— and she has given me some most amusing accounts of the way she does it—yet they all come back again and like her all the better that she can take such good care of herself and make them respect her so much. I don't quite follow all that tho lady says in her letter to you ; but perhaps my wife wrote it, and she is awfully clever and says things which I don't always follow, but it looks to me all right, and if we can amuse ourselves so much, and keep so straight, why should anyone complain ! I get the pleasantest society, and the best shooting and fishing, and always go to Cowes and smoke at the club, while my wife goes out in a yacht—for I hate yachting ; altogether, the husband of my wife loads a most jolly life, and your pretty complaining woman is silly, and does not know how to make herself so pleasant as my wife and still keep straight. I have now got quite vpnonciled to the term ' professional beauty' which you invented, and have no hesitation in signing myself The Husband op One op Them.