THE PALM OF GREEK BEAUTY CONTESTED, 
49 
the smallness of her feet, her aerial tendencies. ISTone can, without 
injustice, accuse me of having yielded to the ridiculous inspiration 
of a poor sentiment of national vanity, in declaring that the type 
of Parisian beauty was the only one which could lend itself to the 
incarnation of the ideal. Because, although the Parisienne be what 
has been best devised in the way of woman up to this day, we 
must not conclude that this is the last word of feminine beauty ; 
for there is no limit to the perfectibility of the ideal — no term to 
our insatiable aspirations. The most beautiful half of the human 
race will not, besides, give the perfect type of earthly beauty, until 
after she shall have been able to develop all the magnificence of 
her nature in its liberty and glory — until after human wisdom shall 
have purified the globe of its actual miseries — poverty, moralism, 
hypocrisy, and venality. 
What causes the inferiority of the Greek types is, the absence 
of soul — it is the absorption of intelligence by matter. The wo- 
men of Phidias, and even the Yenus of Milo and the other Yenuses, 
are assuredly very beautiful creatures ; and the chisels that have 
modeled these forms are the chisels of sublime artists, stronger, by 
many points, than Puget or Nicholas Coustou ; but the most skill- 
ful chisels in the world can only reproduce what they know ; and 
in those times, when the genius of art gave birth to these charm- 
ing bodies, man, horn of woman, had not yet thought proper to 
concede a soul to her from whom he held his life. Wherefore, 
soul is wanting, like the perfume to the vase, in all these charming 
bodies. As woman was only a slave, destined for pleasure; as 
not a soul, but only flesh, was asked of this instrument of pleas- 
ure ; the artist made her a body in conformity with her destiny — 
a body where the phenomenon absorbed the substance *^ — where 
the brow, abode of divine intelligence, was depressed and reduced 
to the proportions of stupidity. The small head and narrow brow 
are a seal of inferiority among all species. All the ancient Yenuses, 
however gentle the lines of their torso and shoulders, are only 
odalisques with proud and stupid brow. Those brains are all too 
small to hold a goddess’ soul. Greek art has been punished where 
it has sinned ; because it could not rise to the idea of the woman- 
queen, it has not been permitted to reproduce her features. 
