"'I, being now above the changes of time, I only, contemplate their charm. And what greater potentialities of charm could one wish for than those that your women possess? If those magnificently cut and superbly coloured eyes learned to be expressive; if the muscles of those fine cheeks knew how to move with speedier grace; if that purely outlined mouth were more animated--what possibilities of fascination, like so many fairies, might rise over the dispassionate surface of those silent lakes! As they are, their several organs are positively hostile, or coldly indifferent to one another. The forehead, instead of being the ever-changing capital of the human column, setting off their beautiful hair, as ivory sets off gold; the shoulders, the seat of human grace, instead of giving to the head the pedestal of the Charites; and the arms and hands, instead of giving by their movements the proper lilt and cadence to everything said or done;--all these hate one another respectively. The arms do not converse with the face; theirs is like other conversations: after a few remarks on the weather all communication stops. So sullen is the antipathy of the arms, that as a rule they hide on the back, as if begrudging the face or the bust their company. It is in that way that English women who might be as beautiful and charming as the maidens of Thebes or of Tanagra, have made themselves into walking Caryatides, whom we invariably represented as doing a slavish labour, with their arms on their backs, and with a heavy load on their heads. "'Remove the arms, O women of England, from your badly swung back and bring them into play in front of your well-shaped bust and your beautiful faces! Let the consciousness of your power electrify your looks, your dimples, and your gait; and when from musing Graces you will have changed into graceful Muses, your men too will be much superior to what they used to be. "'See how little your influence is, as your language clearly indicates. Is not your language the only idiom in Europe that has completely dropped that fine shade of sweet intimacy which the use of _thou_ and _thy_ is giving to the other languages? Is not a new world of tenderest internal joy permeating the French, German or Italian woman who for the first time dares to _tutoyer_ her lover? You women of England, the natural priestesses of all warmth and intimacy, you have suffered all that to decay. "'To your men we Hellenes say: "Imitate us!" To you women, we do not say so. We ask you to exceed us, to go beyond us, and then alone when women will be what we Hellenic men were, that is, specimens of all-round humanity, then indeed you too will rise to the higher status, and the golden age will again fill the world with light and happiness!' "After that speech of mine," continued Alcibiades, "there was much applause. I mingled with the public, and was at once interpellated by one of the American ladies present: