The Uneven Distribution of Beauty in the Community. My annoyance at this.

You can tell this isn't me, by the
flawless bone structure, and necklace. 
This is a Fishwife.

This isn't me either. I wish I did look like this.
Shrew.

Look at these beautiful women! (L, and R) I don't know who they are, but I strongly resent them, and the whole population of pretty girls. This is because I am hideous - too tall, with big feet, a hefty nose, dull hair, horrible unblue eyes, and nasty thin lips, which attributes I team with gauche demeanour and inelegant posture. I have always been hideous since time began. It is very unfair.
I have no idea how to apply make-up to remedy matters and when I try to have dress sense it just makes me look even worse. I can't be bothered to take exercise and there is no self-control or willpower available so I can't go on diets. I have only to LOOK at a crisp to eat it, and then all its friends.

What I object to is the fact that everyone (every man, at least) seems to think pretty girls are terribly clever for being pretty, when really the little minxes should be forever praising God and thanking him for blessing them in this way. It is just LUCK, dears, and you are fortunate. You are not clever*. You should be grateful, not smug. You bags. I suppose it was clever of them to have learnt dress sense, make-up artistry and self control. But mostly they are just lucky.

*although such girls are always also Captain of Lax, Leader of the School Orchestra, in the top set for maths and winners of the Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia Work.

 

If you look at pictures of these girls when they were babies you can see that they were always good-looking right from the start. When people like me are born the midwife has to warn the father to "Brace yourself, Sir. It's the ugliest baby I've ever seen," and things continue from there without improvement.

 

This brute is Cross Baby from Private Eye Magazine,
with whom I have a lot in common,
though I think I was more scrofulous than he is.

Here is a little ANGEL
which is obviously going to grow up to be A Beauty.
Strumpet.

A typical pretty girl is one of my predecessors as my husband's consort. He often calls me by her name and I have schooled myself to take this as a compliment. She (as I am constantly reminded by him and his various friends) is petite and ravishing, her feet are tiny, her nose is retroussé and she is able to get away with wearing a mini-kilt, which item of clothing could not feature in even the most deluded of my wardrobe fantasies. When I saw her in that mini-kilt it was the last straw. 
'Alas!' I said, and knew myself to be forever excluded from the rare aesthetic air inhabited by her and her kind.


Some pretty girls are ok - the ones who are funny and do not consider themselves superior on account of having their blonde hair blue eyes etc. I was at Nursing School with one like that, and despite being stunning she did not just sit around expecting to be admired and made much of, but larked about merrily in a most entertaining way along with us less attractive folk. Her cheerful disposition endeared her to everyone; and her glamorousness meant that although she didn't mean to, whenever she came to stay she used to upset all the relationship dynamics among the youth of the village, and one Saturday night there was an actual riot in the neighbouring town because of her. My father to his dying day treasured the memory of an occasion when she had lost a contact lens on the bathroom floor and he was allowed to help her look for it. She had a tiny towel wrapped round her at the time. A really excellent girl who remains a byword in our family as the feminine ideal.

The trouble is that the world benefits, overall, by having these pretty girls - the men LOVE them - so I suppose I will have to put up with them. I just wanted to put it on record that I don't like it, though.