I had shaken off all belief in Christianity early in life, and had suffered much. Shelley had replaced faith by reason, but I still suffered: but here was a new creed which proclaimed the divinity of the body, and for a long time the reconstruction of all my theories of life on a purely pagan basis occupied my whole attention. The exquisite outlines of the marvellous castle, the romantic woods, the horses moving, the lovers leaning to each other's faces enchanted me; and then the indescribably beautiful description of the performance of _As you like it_, and the supreme relief and perfect assuagement it brings to Rodolph, who then sees Mdlle. de Maupin for the first time in woman's attire. If she were dangerously beautiful as a man, that beauty is forgotten in the rapture and praise of her unmatchable woman's loveliness. But if Mdlle. de Maupin was the highest peak, it was not the entire mountain. The range was long, and each summit offered to the eye a new and delightful prospect. There were the numerous tales,--tales as perfect as the world has ever seen; "La Morte Amoureuse," "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cléopâtre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camées," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective _blanc_ and _blanche_ is repeated with miraculous felicity in each stanza. And then Contralto,-- "Mais seulement il se transpose Et passant de la forme au son, Trouvant dans la métamorphose La jeune fille et le garçon."