If I wished to indicate by an ideographic sign all the varied and essential parts which the sense of sight assumes in love, I would use the figure of a winged messenger, a sort of Mercury, with the left hand leading Voluptuousness on the earth, and with the right directing our gaze toward the highest regions of the ideal, where in holiest and most tender company live the good and the beautiful, the true and the sublime, where are preserved all the variform archetypes of sublimity. Hearing has a small but interesting part in the story of love, if we set aside the prominent part it has as an instrument of thought. We are not to discuss here music or the value of ideas communicated through words, but the purely sensual influence of the ear in amorous phenomena. Hearing yields some pleasures almost tactile, and always very sensual, such as are brought to us by some sounds which may be termed lascivious (the swish of a silk gown, the warbling of some birds, the murmur of certain waves, etc.); but beyond these rare exceptions, hearing has a tender, affectionate part. We would say that it stirs affections, predisposing them to vibrate with the sweetest, most impassioned notes. Man and woman have each a peculiar voice, and the sexual character of the feminine voice affects man, while the virile timbre of his voice causes woman's heart to throb with the most deeply sexual desires. There are some feminine voices that cannot be heard with impunity, so suavely do their notes penetrate into the greatest depths of the heart, which throbs with excitement and emotion. The voice of some women resembles a caress by the wing of a swan; and while it delights us, it perturbs and confuses us, affects us deeply and lastingly. Man and woman, through the notes of their voices, chastely reveal their sex, and the heart palpitates violently, as that of a girl bathing, who, before trusting her little foot to the wave, looks around as though frightened by the rustle of the leaves. The sound of the voice, beyond the idea it represents, cannot say, "I am beautiful, I am intelligent," but it can say, alone, many other sweet things: "I am a woman, I am very much of a woman, I desire much, I am languishing with love, I am alone, I want you at once, I await you ardently," etc.