236 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



the deep folds of the lower torso have but this moment 

 been formed as she stooped, and the impulse is to ex- 

 tend the hands to welcome this beautiful embodiment 

 of lovingkindness. There, in full existence, visible, tan- 

 gible, seems to be all that the heart has imagined of the 

 deepest and highest emotions. She stoops to please the 

 children, that they may climb her back ; the whole of 

 her body speaks the dearest, the purest love. To extend 

 the hands towards her is so natural, it is difficult to avoid 

 actually doing so. Hers is not the polished beauty of 

 the Venus de Medici, whose very fingers have no joints. 

 The typical Venus is fined down from the full growth of 

 human shape to fit the artist's conception of what beauty 

 should be. Her frame is rounded ; her limbs are 

 rounded ; her neck is rounded ; the least possible ap- 

 pearance of fulness is removed ; any line that is not in 

 exact accordance with a strict canon is worked out — in 

 short, an ideal is produced, but humanity is obliterated. 

 Something of the too rounded is found in it — a figure so 

 polished has an air of the bath and of the mirror, of 

 luxury ; it is too feminine ; it obviously has a price pay- 

 able in gold. But here is a woman perfect as a woman, 

 with the love of children in her breast, her back bent for 

 their delight. An ideal indeed, but real and human. 

 Her form has its full growth of wide hips, deep torso, 

 broad shoulders. Nothing has been repressed or fined 

 down to a canon of art or luxury. A heart beats within 

 her bosom ; she is love ; with her neither gold nor ap- 

 plause has anything to do ; she thinks of the children. 

 In that length of back and width of chest, in that strong 

 torso, there is just the least trace of manliness. She is 

 not all, not too feminine ; with all her tenderness, she 

 can think and act as nobly as a man. 



Absorbed in the contemplation of her beauty, I did 



