| "The natural curiosities too are well worthy a visit from the curious and scientific—and most curious among them is the Fee-jee beauty—the mermaid, hitherto believed to be of fabulous existence. We, of course, cannot undertake to say whether this seeming wonder of nature be real or not, it not being in our power to apply to it any scientific test of truth; but this we deem it but just to say, that we were permitted to handle and examine it as closely as could be effected by touch and sight, and that if there be any deception, it is beyond the discovery of both those senses. The appearance is in every respect that of a natural and not an artificial object—it is certainly no compound or combination, as has been supposed, of ape and fish—but is either altogether nature's handi-work, or altogether the production of art—and if it be indeed artificial, it is the very perfection of art, imitating nature in the closest similitude. We are rather inclined to have faith on the occasion, for the connection, which this curious object establishes between fish and women, is only in analogy with that which every body knows to exist between monkey and man. Of one allusion, however, the sight of the wonder has forever robbed us—we shall never again discourse, even in poesy of mermaid beauty, nor woo a mermaid even in our dreams—for the Fee-jee lady is the very incarnation of ugliness."
|
