compulsory and not always cost-free
friends. One was not wrong in preferring in general to them friends who
are a species of optional and unselfish relations. Maternal love itself
has undergone a good many transformations among our women artists, and
one must admit, sundry partial set backs.

But love is left to us. Or rather, be it said without vanity, it is we
who discovered and introduced it. Its name has preceded it by a good
many centuries. Our ancestors gave it its name, but they spoke of it as
the Hebrews spoke of the Messiah. It has revealed itself in our day. In
our day it has become incarnate, it has founded the true religion,
universal and enduring, that pure and austere moral which is
indistinguishable from art. It has been favoured at the outset, beyond
all doubt and beyond all expectation by the charm and beauty of our
women, who are all differently yet almost equally accomplished. There is
nothing _natural_ left in our world below if it be not they. But it
appears they have always been the most beautiful thing in nature even in
the most unfavourable and ill-favoured ages. For we are assured that
never was the graceful curve of hill or stream, of wave or rippling
cornfield, that never was the hue of the dawn or of the Mediterranean
equal in sweetness, in strength, in richness of visible music and
harmony to the female form. There must therefore have been a special
instinct which is quite incomprehensible which formerly retained the
poor beside their natal river or rock and prevented their emigrating to
the big towns, where they might well have hoped to admire at their ease
tints and outlines of beauty assuredly far superior to the charm of the
locality to whose attractions they fell a victim. At present there is no
other country than the woman of one's affections; there is no other
home-sickness than that caused by her absence.

But the foregoing is insufficient to explain the unparalleled power and
persistence of our love which time intensifies more than it wears out,
and consummates as it consumes it. Love, we now at last know, is like
air, essential to life; we must look to it for health and not for mere
nourishment. It is as the sun once was, we must use it to give us light,
not allow it to dazzle us. It resembles that imposing temple that the
fervour of our fathers raised in its honour when they worshipped it,
unwittingly, at the Paris Opera-house. The most beautiful part of it is
the staircase--whe