Christian civilization has taught us that we must seize [p188] every opportunity of mortifying and humiliating the flesh to secure the predominance of the superior and spiritual principle—the soul. No doubt the passions and emotions of this soul manifest themselves by gesture to some extent; but they are chiefly revealed in the expression of the face, of the mouth and eyes. Hence the preponderance given to the head, which, at the first appearance of Christianity, when the art of the ancients escaped from the Byzantine bonds, led the early painters to represent hydrocephalic Christs and angels, with the enormous eyes of batrachians, and emaciated, anchylosis, meagre bodies. Hence also the habit that we all have at the present time of judging beauty—and particularly feminine beauty, which is more expressive than the other—from the features of the face. Greece never despised corporeal beauty in this way. She taught that if the soul be divine, the body is the temple of a god. And on the same principle that she decorated the houses of the Olympians, so that it might please them to dwell therein, she also commanded the body, the habitation of the soul, to be embellished by gymnastics. She placed the _musikè_, the tutor of the soul, and the _gumnastikè_, the tutor of the body, on the same level in the practical education of her heroes. This is why the artists who embodied her ideal of beauty did not give more expression to the face than to the torso. Suppose that the Venus had lost her head instead of an arm; she would not appear more mutilated. One of the most beautiful legacies that Greek sculpture has bequeathed to us is a headless _Victory_. The immense extent of the Hippodrome prevents the [p189] spectator from seeing the details of the features, and transfers his habitual attention to the observation of the whole figure. I noticed this effect a short time ago, when watching the classic poses of a group of young Italian girls—the sisters Chiesi. To increase their resemblance to statues, and to produce as far as possible the illusion of nudes in marble, these young models wear tights whitened with flour. Thus moulded, the Chiesi mount upon each other, and pause in bold yet classic attitudes, which combine the poses of the acrobat and the academy. I did not for one second dream of looking at the beauty of their faces, not even when they were triumphantly driven round the ring under my eyes in the gilded carriage of the late Duke of Brunswick. [Illustration] [p190] This is an exceptional case. But given equal talent, we always prefer a woman’s performance to that of a man. It gives us, besides the peculiar pleasure which acrobatic feats always produce, the general pleasure which the exhibition of a perfectly-formed woman never fails to excite. And to us moderns this is not merely an intellectual and moral enjoyment; in it there mingles a little voluptuous emotion. . . [Illustration]