ed it! For surely this is no idle nor fantastic saying. To
deny that 'making up' is an art, on the pretext that the finished work
of its exponents depends for beauty and excellence upon the ground
chosen for the work, is absurd. At the touch of a true artist, the
plainest face turns comely. As subject-matter the face is no more than
suggestive, as ground, merely a loom round which the beatus artifex may
spin the threads of any golden fabric:

'Quae nunc nomen habent operosi signa Maronis Pondus iners quondam
duraque massa fuit. Multa viros nescire decet; pars maxima rerum
Offendat, si non interiora tegas,'

and, as Ovid would seem to suggest, by pigments any tone may be set
aglow on a woman's cheek, from enamel the features take any form.
Insomuch that surely the advocates of soup-kitchens and free-libraries
and other devices for giving people what Providence did not mean them to
receive should send out pamphlets in the praise of self-embellishment.
For it will place Beauty within easy reach of many who could not
otherwise hope to attain to it.

But of course Artifice is rather exacting. In return for the repose she
forces--so wisely!--upon her followers when the sun is high or the moon
is blown across heaven, she demands that they should pay her long
homage at the sun's rising. The initiate may not enter lightly upon her
mysteries. For, if a bad complexion be inexcusable, to be ill-painted is
unforgivable; and, when the toilet is laden once more with the fulness
of its elaboration, we shall hear no more of the proper occupation for
women. And think, how sweet an energy, to sit at the mirror of coquetry!
See the dear merits of the toilet as shown upon old vases, or upon
the walls of Roman ruins, or, rather still, read Boettiger's alluring,
scholarly description of 'Morgenscenen im Puttzimmer Einer Reichen
Roemerin.' Read of Sabina's face as she comes through the curtain of her
bed-chamber to the chamber of her toilet. The slavegirls have long been
chafing their white feet upon the marble floor. They stand, those timid
Greek girls, marshalled in little battalions. Each has her appointed
task, and all kneel in welcome as Sabina stalks, ugly and frowning, to
the toilet chair. Scaphion steps forth from among them, and, dipping a
tiny sponge in a bowl of hot milk, passes it lightly, ever so lightly,
over her mistress' face. The Poppaean pastes melt beneath it like snow.
A cooling lotion is poured over her brow, and is fann