to any other effect.

CHAPTER XII.

STORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MAN, FROM WHICH MAY BE GATHERED WHETHER OR NO
HE HAS BEEN JUSTLY SO ENTITLED.

It appeared that the unfortunate man had had for a wife one of those
natures, anomalously vicious, which would almost tempt a metaphysical
lover of our species to doubt whether the human form be, in all cases,
conclusive evidence of humanity, whether, sometimes, it may not be a
kind of unpledged and indifferent tabernacle, and whether, once for all
to crush the saying of Thrasea, (an unaccountable one, considering that
he himself was so good a man) that "he who hates vice, hates humanity,"
it should not, in self-defense, be held for a reasonable maxim, that
none but the good are human.

Goneril was young, in person lithe and straight, too straight, indeed,
for a woman, a complexion naturally rosy, and which would have been
charmingly so, but for a certain hardness and bakedness, like that of
the glazed colors on stone-ware. Her hair was of a deep, rich chestnut,
but worn in close, short curls all round her head. Her Indian figure was
not without its impairing effect on her bust, while her mouth would have
been pretty but for a trace of moustache. Upon the whole, aided by the
resources of the toilet, her appearance at distance was such, that some
might have thought her, if anything, rather beautiful, though of a style
of beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like.

It was happy for Goneril that her more striking peculiarities were less
of the person than of temper and taste. One hardly knows how to reveal,
that, while having a natural antipathy to such things as the breast of
chicken, or custard, or peach, or grape, Goneril could yet in private
make a satisfactory lunch on hard crackers and brawn of ham. She liked
lemons, and the only kind of candy she loved were little dried sticks of
blue clay, secretly carried in her pocket. Withal she had hard, steady
health like a squaw's, with as firm a spirit and resolution. Some other
points about her were likewise such as pertain to the women of savage
life. Lithe though she was, she loved supineness, but upon occasion
could endure like a stoic. She was taciturn, too. From early morning
till about three o'clock in the afternoon she would seldom speak--it
taking that time to thaw her, by all accounts, into but talking terms
with humanity. During the interval she did little but look, and keep
looking out of her large, metallic eyes, w