Where the world find the Graces they proclaim the Venus.
Few persons attain pre-eminent celebrity for anything, without some adventitious and extraneous circumstances which have nothing to do with the thing celebrated.

Some qualities or some circumstances throw a mysterious or personal charm about them.

"Is Mr.So-and-So really such a genius ?" "Is Mrs.Such-a-One really such a beauty ?" you ask incredulously.

"Oh, yes," is the answer.

"Do you know all about him or her?
Such a thing is said, or such a thing has happened." The idol is interesting in itself, and therefore its leading and popular attribute is worshipped.
Now Madame de Ventadour was at this time the beauty of Naples: and though fifty women in the room were handsomer, no one would have dared to say so.