that thanks to them anybody, however modest his resources, can find something to suit him; it is the bazaar of love.

And thus raw individualism, the mainspring of human energy, was to become transformed and to tend towards a collective end.

Poor women! they were under no illusion about the superficial effect they for the most part produced; they knew that perhaps it would all amount to no more than an outward show of improvement, and that at bottom man would remain the vulgar and self-seeking creature he was.1 This thought confirmed them in their platonism and their virtue; if there was no better result, they told themselves that, after all, to awaken mere sensibility was not an absolute waste of time; that it was a merit to refine vice, to "polish it up," to drape it with hypocrisy, to rule men and impress their intelligence even by indirect means: they found the occupation every whit as interesting as piling up household linen or polishing the furniture. They hoped that the future would justify their devotion. After all their love was only a means; the end was to pour upon life a little joy, a little balm, light, power, happiness-to shower happiness everywhere.

1 Heptameron, Tale 14.

CHAPTER III

THE MISSION OF BEAUTY

BEFORE We can make others happy we must draw upon the sources of happiness in our own nature and in the world around. It is reason's ungracious way to show us the realities of life in the mass, and even in their darker aspects; it is aestheticism that turns their bright side to us. Absolute ugliness does not exist, any more than absolute beauty, and a careful analysis detects an element of beauty and love in everything. The quest for this element is women's work. In moulding us into beings sensitive to the least manifestation of happiness, they restore us to health.

Their first duty is to exhibit in themselves every loveable quality, physical and moral; for platonism is not the art of loving, but the art of guiding men towards happiness through love. Their second duty is to make good use of the elements at their disposal, and force life to yield the very pith and essence of the Beautiful. Or we may liken them to conductors of orchestras, who draw unexpected tones out of space. How noble, how difficult is the task! Surely there is enough in it to fill a lifetime! What intelligence, what knowledge, what skill, even to charming sympathetic accents from a stone, are needed! Platonism would be narrow and inadequate indeed-would be indistinguishable from the most hackneyed sentiments—if it were satisfied with the triumph of feminine coquetry, and did not extend its mission to the whole of nature.

To render themselves beautiful and admirable, therefore, women will have to make the most of their resources. Whatever their occupation, they can always mingle with it something of the ideal, or turn it to the glory of their sex,

even if it is a mere matter of dining or of walking in a meadow; how much more so if it is a question of the manifold usages of social life, and more especially of its intellectual occupations! Through their fostering care all things should become imbued with a sentiment of peace and love, and tend in common towards happiness. That is where their talent lies. Clearly the method employed will vary according to circumstances, situation, possibilities, temperaments. Different women will pursue different aims, and avail themselves of different weapons; but, in the long run, none is neglected. While therefore we cannot hope to produce a thoroughly accurate picture, we shall pass in review the principal circumstances which provide a lady with her means of action, starting in logical order with the material and proceeding to the intellectual facts.

In the material universe, it is woman's capital duty to possess what pleases men; for here we are entering a purely practical field, and the quest of the ideal is of much less moment than the skilful dressing of the hook!

Physical beauty is not an indispensable condition of pleasing; on the contrary indeed, a certain homely plainness does not come amiss, platonically speaking. If many of the celebrated women whom we know only in their portraits were to come to life again, perhaps we could not resist their fascinations; but they are dead, and to us they are plain; their plainness served them as a sort of lightningconductor. We may go even farther; true beauty was held suspect. As Anne of France severely says, it is the most prejudicial and least valuable grace that God can bestow on a woman, especially a princess. It is made too much of; it inevitably jumbles the sentiments, mixing with the purest an alloy of instability; there is always a risk of its upsetting the best-laid schemes. A princess acknowledged as a beauty cannot choose her servitors; she knows neither how far they will go nor perhaps how far she will go herself. She seats her empire on very precarious foundations, since the less sensual love is, the longer it endures. In fine, women are what they are, and it is impossible to ask them to change. But any woman who knows her duty may be asked to practise the feminine art, and this art is called charm.

Many men do not know the meaning of the word "charm"; they speak of beauty as savants or as grocers

might, not as faithful worshippers. If you pull women to pieces, if you judge them as you would a yard of calico, a donkey or a slave, you will see naturally but a form of flesh; you may estimate its geometrical dimensions, count on your fingers thirty or thirty-six special beauties; if you profess an intellectual standpoint, you will perhaps go so far as to measure the cranium, and that will be all. You will be content as an artist to produce a "semblance of life," by dint of scrupulous attention to detail; you will not perceive what it is that speaks to us, fascinates us. Charm is not expressed in terms of arithmetic or algebra: it is an art, perhaps the highest of all arts, because more than any other, more even than poetry or music, it speaks from soul to soul; it is a sort of witchery, a woman's knack, as it were, of enveloping all around her in an invisible net. It is not purely intellectual, but avails itself of physical means and disdains everything in the way of formulae. The Italians, adoring this delightful art, have vainly devoted innumerable and often very prolix writings to the attempt to fathom it. All their reasonings are condensed in this vague sentence of Firenzuola:1 "A beautiful woman is one who is universally pleasing"; and Firenzuola is no better able than the rest to say why she is pleasing. If we were speaking of a good housewife, it would be easy to catalogue her virtues: the talents of a managing woman, a woman who can look after one's health, keep the books and train the children, have often been computed. Of a charming woman, never! Each one has her own secret. And yet the art of charming is very widespread. To that art the Italian women owed their positions as queens of the world (or, to satisfy Montaigne, let us say the "regents"); they were not superior to French women in beauty of form or in originality of soul, but among them there were more beautiful women," that is to say, captivating women, than elsewhere. They were imbued with platonic sweetness, had acquired an indescribable magnetism, a perfume of human graciousness, so holy, so all-pervading that it seemed to purify the air and make the world a temple instead of a hospital: like the precious

[Poet and translator (1493-1545), friend of Aretino. He wrote 'amorous discourses' in imitation of Boccaccio; comedies in imitation of Plautus ; a translation of the Golden Ass of Apuleius; and a prose work on the beauty of women.]

spikenard poured long ago upon the feet of the Saviour, all soiled with the dust of the world.

Like all other arts, charm is a gift of nature. The first rule for a woman is to know herself thoroughly, so that she may bring her individual gifts discreetly into play, especially those which affect the man she has in view. It will not do to let her art appear. A woman's charm depends upon her acting spontaneously, even though imperfectly; it is impossible to insist too strongly on this principle, which of itself explains the evolution of women's power in the sixteenth century. So long as women frankly assert their personality in their actions, taking counsel only of themselves, their power never ceases to grow, and produces excellent results; but when, whether from indifference, timidity, the instinct of submission, or a mistaken education, they no longer see in platonism anything but an art to learn, a lesson to rattle off, a conventional pose, all is over; men of real virility escape their influence, and deride their charm as a puerile thing, and the women find no men to govern but the insignificant herd whom they do not care a straw for, and who are distinguished one from another only by the colour of their pantaloons. This is the practical result of the parallel instituted between true platonism and the platonism of convention, between Michelangelo and Bembo, between the vigorous Anne of France, who was willing to assimilate certain delightful principles of the new spirit so long as no sacrifice of character or caste was involved, and the amiable Margaret of France, who was much more inclined to go over bag and baggage to the Italian methods, in order to obtain in France the same results as in Italy.

Nevertheless, apart from originality, which is indispensable, and diversity, which is essential, it is possible to mention some elements that go to the making of charm, consecrated, apparently, by experience or tradition. Of these, some are physical, some intellectual; for the present we shall speak only of the former.

It is a general rule (if we may speak of rules) that the physical charm of a woman springs entirely from whatever accentuates her feminine, arch-feminine character. Thus it must above all express the completest, most absolute sweetness.

For a long time this characteristic sweetness appeared to