OYEZ! OYEZ!
HEAR, all ye that make beauty your god, and be warned of me in respect of this woman. Let him that is without her range, and him that moveth in her circle, consider my words which are of wisdom.
She has the witchery of the Devil, yet is she nearer in her soul to Heaven than all they that do no evil in your midst. From the outset of your acquaintance she will be to you as the most wholly adorable of all idols, whose beauty is a mockery unto the Decalogue. She will smile with such eyes as shall go shining through your solitary soul, making manifest to you its great emptiness. She will bend to you with so lithe a grace that you will have no space in your thoughts but for the immediate sensation; it will set you aflame on the instant. There is ineffable abandonment in her movements that was learnt of houris or of faery. Her lips are the gates of Paradise. I am aware how fatuous is this summary of her charm, and yet merely to class her as lovely were to shrink from one's duty of homage. If you will suppose these and far subtler graces compact in one favoured body, you will perchance conceive with what show of resistance you will be like to approach her. Assuredly you will regard your finest efforts as unworthy tributes in her service, and account yourself blessed to be admitted to this new religion. For the neophytes in her worship she has a particular kindness, and will thus display to you such natural sympathies as will reveal her the most tender of her tender sex. Indeed, there is nothing too mean for her pity nor too remote for her kind thought. You yourself will consider that you are followed day-long by her gracious regard, and that in the night your memory is contemplated by those frank and faithful eyes. Her heart, you will vow, corroborates her face, and there is none since God made Eve, such an epitome of excellence.
But I that alone among worshippers have the gift of clear discernment cry you a warning in the streets. You have the folly in your blood and the blink of the sun in your eyes. Pause ere you venture nearer this divinity that to me as to you is the centre-piece of earth; that has put me to despair above all, the greatest of her sufferers by reason of his most arrogant desire. What she shines in your eyes, that is she truly—sweethearted, gracious, beautiful, and free; but she has put a bar 'twixt herself and the supreme passion. Hence shall you behold her as she is. That smile of hers, in truth the significant index of a kindly heart, and those admirable affections, its necessary expression, are of such a ruthless sanity that it is not possible to be fully just to them upon a longer acquaintance. They appear a mockery which are but her inborn grace. For she herself is without guile or evil purpose, untouched of diablerie, open-souled, gay, light of heart, serene, indifferent, the most natural, self-revealed, unhesitating idol of this world. Out of her glass her fair face must surely start each morning an immortal surprise upon its owner; yet I will swear it is odds she has forgotten it when she meets you. It is true, the admiration in your gaze will prick her memory; but the vanity is passing, the picture of her own perfection flits like a shadow over the sunlight, too brief for recognition, too familiar for regard. The simplicity of her unconsciousness is inordinate. Each day she goes into the whirl of the world with a dainty delight; each night she whips out of it with a wreathed smile, half for these dear done pleasures, half for the happy morrow. Become by her pretty gestures, she has fallen into them through no desire of attraction, but fortuitously as to the habit born, from the very persuasion of her own individuality. Yet she is aware they are engaging, as she has knowledge of her own loveliness, and with the most surprising candour will discuss them with you, should she have the whim. The whim is her master; she is at the mercy of the moment's inspiration. It will bid her confess you all things; there shall be no secrets between you and herself; before you the inner mysteries of beauty will be laid bare with convincing sincerity. The idle humour is like blood in her veins, the active spirit of her being. Nothing is set for you, nothing prepared. If you shall behold her at one particular moment transcendent above her lovely self, it is not of her arrangement; she lays no mine against your heart's integrity. It is true she has the eyes of a woman, and discerns your affection ere it come to your own knowledge. But the discovery has small interest for her, for she has long known that you too must join the worshippers; and what matters one in a crowd! If it were not you, lo! it must be another; and, to do her justice, she would as lief be kind to you as to him. Even were it in her power, she would never prohibit you from your folly. Though the cruelty of her beauty is so notorious to herself, she doubtless takes a certain pleasure in its handiwork; if so be, that is, no incompatible caprice be dancing in her veins. She will never, be assured, withhold her eyes for fear of their danger. The rest is 'twixt yourself and your Maker. Save on the sway of the moment, her regard for one is no greater than for another. She will deal with you as with me, with me as with another, and will think it a pity that some should bear their fate so ill. It was no fault in her; Fate must be to blame, and neither she nor you. There have been few occasions, I should judge, when she has been out of temper with the importunity of her admirers; out of her excellent pity and kindness she will not suffer it to interfere with her fastidious friendliness. Though by this her satisfaction must be of the smallest, she will hear your passion with the utmost indulgence. Nay, her excellence is so preposterous that when you are describing your rare feelings she will positively simulate an air of sympathetic interest, as though you were telling of your influenza; and in the end will condole with you and wonder aloud what cure will meet your case. When you arrive her pleasure is free and facile; when you leave, she is unfeignedly regretful. Throughout you are part of her necessary environment in a most delightful life; and the law of her nature is to be tolerant and kind. Thus, should you come into her acquaintance, you will find her: your ecstasy and your despair, as she is mine, who am the foremost and most forlorn of all her victims.