THE BEAUTIFUL. Ill 



body, may even learn to contemn it with profane and 

 lamentable sincerity, but it is the workmanship of a di- 

 vine artist, which he has pronounced suited to be the 

 casket of his own likeness. I would not dare yield to 

 the Greek in admiration of its divine beauty. I accept 

 the verdict of the cultured intelligence of all the ages. 

 The perfect human form we shall never cease to admire. 

 The beautiful face or figure sheds a gratuitous joy on all 

 beholders. 



The instinct to seek to appear beautiful is universal. 

 Some of us are obliged to content ourselves with ap- 

 proaching the beautiful only so far as to become pleas- 

 ing. None need fall short of this. But whosoever can 

 become beautiful may regard himself divinely called to be 

 beautiful. Beauty and duty chime as well in substance 

 as in sound. The ambition to be beautiful is not only 

 right, it is ennobling, it is obligatory. But beware 

 of counting mere personal beauty the chief end of life. 



The prerogative of supreme personal beauty belongs 

 to the sex which, by unanimous impulse, we pronounce 

 gentle. I have beforehand the undivided verdict of my 

 own sex when I pronounce a beautiful woman the most 

 perfect expression of the ideal of physical beauty. Beauty 

 of person spiritualized by a quick responsive intelligence, 

 beaming and sweet with a transparent benignity of soul, 

 crowned with the queenly mien, and sceptered with the 

 regal gait which are her birthright, makes woman the 

 mightiest moral power in existence. The history of the 

 world is my voucher for the statement. 



"The power o' beauty reigns supreme 

 O'er all the sons of men." 



James Hogg. 



