ning towards it.
Wondering what this could mean, I speedily left the house, and asked one
of those who were running, what was the matter at the palace? He
replied, that three new comers from the world had been taken up into
heaven, and had there seen magnificent things, also maidens and wives of
astonishing beauty; and that being let down from heaven they had entered
into that palace, and were relating what they had seen; especially that
they had beheld such beauties as their eyes had never before seen, or
can see, unless illustrated by the light of heavenly _aura_. Respecting
themselves they said, that in the world they had been orators, from the
kingdom of France, and had applied themselves to the study of eloquence,
and that now they were seized with a desire of making an oration on the
origin of beauty. When this was made known in the neighbourhood, the
multitude flocked together to hear them. Upon receiving this
information, I hastened also myself, and entered the palace, and saw the
three men standing in the midst, dressed in long robes of a sapphire
color, which, having threads of gold in their texture at every change of
posture shone as if they had been golden. They stood ready to speak
behind a kind of stage; and presently one of them rose on a step behind
the stage, and delivered his sentiments concerning the origin of the
beauty of the female sex, in the following words.

382. "What is the origin of beauty but love, which, when it flows into
the eyes of youths, and sets them on becomes beauty? therefore love and
beauty are the same thing; for love, from an inmost principle, tinges
the face of a marriageable maiden with a kind of flame, from the
transparence of which is derived the dawn and bloom of her life. Who
does not know that the flame emits rays into her eyes, and spreads from
these as centres into the countenance, and also descends into the
breast, and sets the heart on fire, and thereby affects (a youth), just
as a fire with its heat and light affects a person standing near it?
That heat is love, and that light is the beauty of love. The whole world
is agreed, and firm in the opinion, that every one is lovely and
beautiful according to his love: nevertheless the love of the male sex
differs from that of the female. Male love is the love of growing wise,
and female love is that of loving the love of growing wise in the male;
so far therefore as a youth is the love of growing wise, so far he is
lovely a