of Greece, who when
they fall, fall in spite of themselves, impelled by a fatal concurrence of
circumstances, but with so much candour and innocence, that we cannot do
otherwise than pardon their fall and even fail to comprehend that they have
fallen, we are completely amazed when we descend from this imaginary world
to enter the world of reality.

The idealization of woman has therefore, besides other faults, that of
causing as to take a dislike to our ordinary companions. How, indeed, after
being present at the devotion of Sophonisba, at the suicide of the chaste
Lucretia, at the display of the virtues of Mademoiselle Agnes, and at that
of the form of Venus at the bath, can we contemplate with ravished eye the
wife no less plain than lawful, who is sitting with sullen air at our
fire-side, who has no other care than that of her person, no other moral
capital than a round enough sum of prejudices and follies, and whose
charms, finally, resemble more those of a Hottentot Venus than those of
Venus Aphrodite.

The picture of virtues is an excellent thing, but still it is necessary
that these virtues should exist. We must not enunciate an idea simply
because it is moral, but because it is true. _Amicus Plato, sed magis amica
veritas_.

That is why I shall not depict the little person, whom I am going to make
better known to you, as a model of virtue. She is an inquisitive girl, she
is vehement, she has been brought up in an atmosphere where depravity is
more generally inhaled than holiness. I should then be badly advised in
presenting you with an angel of candour and wisdom.

An angel! She is at that age indeed, at which foolish men call women
angels.

"Before they are wed, they are angels so gentle,
But quickly they change to vulgarian scolds,
She-demons who truly make hell of their homes."

[Footnote 1: H. Taine (Notes sur Paris).]

XXVII.

OF SUZANNE IN PARTICULAR.

"An exalted, romantic imagination of
vivid dreams, peopled with sumptuous
hotels, with smart equipages, fetes,
balls, rubies, gold and azure. This is
what I have most surely gathered at
this school and is called: a brilliant
education."

V. SARDOU (_Maison Neuve_).

But she was a ravishing demon, this child, and more than one saint might
have damned himself for her black eyes, those deep limpid eyes which let
one read to her soul. And there one paused perfectly fascinated, for this
fresh resplendent soul displa