"La beaute' pour moi c'est la divinite' visible, c'est le bonheur
palpable, c'est le ciel descendu sur terre."
--Theophile Gautier
Beauty, they say, is but skin-deep. That is quite deep enough to enslave
mankind. As a matter of fact, it is much deeper: for, to say nothing of
health and good-spirits,
Beneath true beauty lies an admirable or a loveable character. And
yet--or, perhaps, and therefore--
If by some mischance beauty should arouse our resentment, with what
different eyes we regard it!
* * *
The feeling for beauty is probably more highly developed in man than in
woman. (N. B. Perhaps this is the source of the beauty of women.)
Nevertheless,
It is a question that perhaps will never be settled, how much value
should be placed upon mere beauty. For
Man soon tires of mere beauty. In fact, man, the inconstant creature,
soon tires of mere anything.
* * *
Beauty should never be analyzed. At sight of graceful neck, who speaks
of "musculus sterno-cleido-mastoideus"; at touch of moist red lips, who
thinks upon the corpuscles of Paccini?
* * *
More women are wooed for their complexions than for their characters.
* * *
Could women only know it, nothing can add to their charms: how
provokingly delightful is the uniformed demureness of an hospital nurse
beside the elaborate bedizenments of a woman of fashion!
* * *
The most beautiful thing known among men is: a good woman. And this is
not an anomaly.
* * *
She who captures a man by a single charm, be it even beauty, holds him by
a weak chain.
Think not it was merely beauty that made Helen or Cleopatra historic.
Beauty is much, and grace is much; but there is a charm more subtle and
potent than these.
* * *
Beauty without modesty is a rose without perfume: the petals may delight,
but they lack an ineffable savor. Like a flower, too,
Though the tangible petals are numbered and comptable, the subtle perfume
eludes the sense and is inexhaustible. For
Modesty is the exhalation of the soul: at once it enhances, as it
refines, the potency of beauty. Nay more,
The sacrosanct aureole of modesty beautifies all it surrounds: though it
diviner haze imperfection there is none. So,
Given a redolent balm, and the lowliest herb becomes treasured and
precious. And
Each human soul has its own individual essence;