Beauty in the Country 



dusty blocks of these days was streaked with dry 

 mosses hiding the mortar. Clear and brilliant, the 

 gaudy sun of morning shone down upon her as she 

 stood in the gateway, resting her arm on the red wall, 

 and pressing on the mosses which the heat had dried. 

 Her face I do not remember, only the arm. She had 

 come out from dairy work, which needs bare arms, 

 and stood facing the bold sun. It was very large 

 some might have called it immense and yet natural 

 and justly proportioned to the woman, her work, and 

 her physique. So immense an arm was like a revela- 

 tion of the vast physical proportions which our race 

 is capable of attaining under favourable conditions. 

 Perfectly white white as the milk in which it was 

 often plunged smooth and pleasant in the texture of 

 the skin, it was entirely removed from coarseness. 

 The might of its size was chiefly by the shoulder; 

 the wrist was not large, nor the hand. Colossal, white, 

 sunlit, bare among the trees and the meads around 

 it was a living embodiment of the limbs we attribute 

 to the first dwellers on earth. 



IV LIPS 



The mouth is the centre of woman's beauty. To 

 the lips the glance is attracted the moment she 

 approaches, and their shape remains in the memory 

 longest. Curve, colour, and substance are the three 

 essentials of the lips, but these are nothing without 

 mobility, the soul of the mouth. If neither sculpture, 

 nor the palette with its varied resources, can convey 

 the spell of perfect lips, how can it be done in black 

 letters of ink only? Nothing is so difficult, nothing 

 so beautiful. There are lips which have an elongated 

 193 N 



