The most rapid and ardent sympathies have their sources in the admiration of form, that is to say, in the sentiment of the beautiful which is satisfied by the object which we desire and are about to love. Among the four definitions of love that Tasso was wont to discuss, there are three which express or suggest this idea: "Love is a desire of beauty; Love is the cupidity of embrace for the pleasure of those who covet a particular beauty; Love is the union through pleasure of beauty." And, in fact, what is love if not the choice of the better forms in order to perpetuate them? What is love if not the selection of the best in order that it may triumph over the mediocre, a selection of youth and strength in order that it may survive the old and weak elements? Woman, the custodian of germs, the vestal of life, must be more beautiful than we, and man loves in her the form above all other things; and mediocre forms can, if elevated by a gigantic genius and an impassioned heart, still excite ardent passions. But these are always unstable sympathies, and where a real deformity appears, love is dead, or lives only as a prodigy of heroism, or as an esthetic malady. Woman also is immediately affected by the beauty of virile forms and can love a man merely because he is handsome; but in her the field of sympathy expands and is much higher, and character and genius will seduce her more frequently than is the case with men. The ugliest men enjoyed the superhuman voluptuousness of being loved; but in the attitude of their characters, in the power of their genius, in the greatness of their position, they possessed a fascination which belonged, nevertheless, to the world of beauty. Woman has within herself such a power of transmission of the germinative elements and such an accumulation of beauty as to be capable of doing without the power and the beauty of her companion; but she wants to feel conquered by a superior force, fascinated by something that shines or flashes or thunders.