Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackerayous knowledge regarding giants and bearded ladies,about whom you evidently now know very little. Therewas that little boy of three years old, with a fine beardalready, and his little legs and arms, as seen out of hislittle frock, covered with a dark down. What a queerlittle capering satyr! He was quite good-natured, childish,rather solemn. He had a little Norval dress, I remember:the drollest little Norval.I have said the B. L. had another child. Now this wasa little girl of some six years old, as fair and as smoothof skin, dear madam, as your own darling cherubs. Shewandered about the great cabin quite melancholy. Noone seemed to care for her. All the family affectionswere centred on Master Esau yonder. His little beardwas beginning to be a little fortune already, whereasMiss Rosalba was of no good to the family. No one wouldpay a cent to see her little fair face. No wonder the poorlittle maid was melancholy. As I looked at her, I seemedto walk more and more in a fairy tale, and more andmore in a cavern of ogres. Was this a little fondlingwhom they had picked up in some forest, where lie thepicked bones of the queen, her tender mother, and thetough old defunct monarch, her father? No. Doubtlessthey were quite good-natured people, these. I don’tbelieve they were unkind to the little girl without themoustaches. It may have been only my fancy that sherepined because she had a cheek no more bearded thana rose’s.Would you wish your own daughter, madam, to have asmooth cheek, a modest air, and a gentle feminine behavior,or to be—I won’t say a whiskered prodigy, likethis Bearded Lady of Kentucky—but a masculine wonder,a virago, a female personage of more than femalestrength, courage, wisdom? Some authors, who shall benameless, are, I know, accused of depicting the mostfeeble, brainless, namby-pamby heroines, for ever whimperingtears and prattling commonplaces. You would havethe heroine of your novel so beautiful that she shouldcharm the captain (or hero, whoever he may be) withher appearance; surprise and confound the bishop withher learning; outride the squire and get the brush, and,when he fell from his horse, whip out a lancet and bleed159