The woman who is deformed, yet whose husband considers her figure shapely; the woman who limps, yet whose husband would not have her otherwise; the woman who is old, and yet seems young, are the happiest creatures in the feminine world. The glory of a woman is in making her defects beloved. To forget that a woman who limps does not walk as she should is the effect of momentary fascination, but to love her because she does so is the deification of her infirmity. In the gospel of women, this sentence, I think, should be written: Blessed are the imperfect, for theirs is the kingdom of love. Beauty certainly must be a misfortune to a woman, for its transient charm is the mainspring of the sentiment which it inspires, and the beautiful woman is loved on the same principle that leads a man to marry an heiress. But the woman who is not dowered with the fragile advantages which the children of Adam seek is alone capable of inspiring that mysterious passion which never wanes; to her true love is given, and with it the deathless embrace of the soul. The most celebrated attachments in history were almost all inspired by women in whom the vulgar would have found defects,—Cleopatra, Jeanne de Naples, Diane de Poitiers, Mademoiselle de la Vallière, Madame de Pompadour; in a word, the women whom love has rendered most celebrated were wanting neither in imperfections nor in infirmities, while the majority of women whose beauty has been cited as perfect witnessed an unfortunate termination to their love affairs. The cause of this apparent contradiction is to be found in the fact that the charm of physical beauty is limited, while psychological attractions possess an infinite power; and this, it may be noted, is undoubtedly the moral of the fabulization of the “Thousand and One Nights.”