you, they would in their eyes be entirely out of drawing. As regards Venus, we have all been taught that she was the most beautiful woman that ever lived. Now, tell me, how could a woman with a pin head, a sunken chest, and a waist as large as that of four women, be a beautiful woman? Such a person could neither be interesting, intelligent, nor even wholesome, and could never be a true Venus, at least according to our conceptions of beauty. I have seen several drawings and bronze statues of Venus, dating as far back as three thousand years; but the ancients had no idea of beauty or of the true symmetrical proportions of the human form; they represented bloated gluttons, not intelligent mortals."
We moved along in silence, but I could not help ruminating over what this wise man had said. Here was a man of wondrous intelligence, here was a man possessed of a marvellous power of conception, a man that I believed to be the most thoughtful and wise philosopher that I had ever met or read of, talking what to me
