Greek Love, _i.e._ Friendship, being thus tinged and strengthened, as we see in the cases of Sokrates and Alkibiades, Sappho and Atthis, by jealousy, ecstatic adoration, exclusiveness, admiration of personal beauty, and other qualities which modern civilisation has transferred to Romantic Love, we are enabled to understand why Friendship was so much more potent and prevalent in antiquity than it is now, when, having lost these traits _through the differentiation of emotions_, it seems “insipid to those who have tasted Love.” The lesson to be learned from this whole discussion on Greek Friendship is of extreme importance to the psychology of Love. It is this: The Greeks were too intellectual and refined not to have at least a vague presentiment of the higher possibilities and charms of imaginative Love. But Greek women—with the rare exceptions referred to—were too stupid to enable the men to realise their vague ideal. Hence they sought it in ardent attachments to youths, who _were_ quick-minded and able to _sympathise_ with their intellectual aspirations. And thus Greek Love became identical with male friendship—the female friendship referred to being a sort of compensating echo. Greek Love is symbolised in the mythic youth Narcissus, who scorns all the beautiful nymphs that are eager for his caresses, and falls in love with his own image reflected in the water. GREEK BEAUTY It even seems as if, apart from Love, the Greeks admired youthful masculine beauty more than feminine charms; and many of them would probably have agreed with Schopenhauer that men are more beautiful than women. Certain it is that, as the most eminent critic of Greek art, Winckelmann, points out “the supreme beauty of Greek art is male rather than female.” The following citation from Grote’s famous work on Plato suggests some reasons for this fact, besides reflecting further light on points discussed in the preceding pages:—