Daily Richmond Whig

Twelve Years Military Adventure.
Anecdote of Mr. Moore. - He (the poet) avowed, on all occasions, an utter horror of ugly women. He was heard, one evening, to observe to a lady, whose person was pre-eminently plain, but who, nevertheless, had been anxiously doing her little endeavors to attract his attention, "I cannot endure an ugly woman. I'm sure I could never live with one. A man that marries an ugly woman cannot be happy." The lady observed that "such an observation she could not permit to pass without remark. She knew many couples who lived most happily."
"Don't talk of it," said the wit, "don't talk of it. It cannot be."
"But I tell you," said the lady, who became, all at once, both piqued and positive, "it can be, and it is. I will name individuals so circumstanced. You have heard of Colonel and Mrs. [blank], she speaks in a deep, gruff, bass voice: he in a thin, shrill treble. She looks like a John Dory; he like a dried alligator. They are called Bubble and Squeak by some of their neighbors, Venus and Adonis by others. But what of that? They are not handsome, to be sure; and there is neither mirror nor pier glass to be found, search their house from one end of it to the other. But what of that? No unhandsome reflections can, in such a case, be cast by either party! I know them well: and a more harmonious couple I never met with. Now, Mr. Moore, in reply, what have you to urge? I flatter myself I have overthrown your theory completely."
"Not a whit. Colonel has got into a scrape, and, like a soldier, puts the best face he can upon it." - The Living and the Dead.