She hides nothing; for modesty was only made for those who have no beauty.

It is an invention of the modern world; the child of the Christian contempt for form and matter._ '_Oh ancient world! all that you held in reverence is held in scorn by us.

Thine idols are overthrown in the dust; fleshless anchorites clad in rags and tatters, martyrs with the blood fresh on them, and their shoulders torn by the tigers of thy circuses, have perched themselves on the pedestals of thy fair desirable gods.

The Christ has enveloped the whole world in his winding-sheet....

Oh purity, plant of bitterness, born on a blood-soaked soil, and whose degenerate and sickly blossom expands with difficulty in the dank shade of cloisters, under a chill baptismal rain; rose without scent, and spiked all round with thorns, thou hast taken the place for us of the glad and gracious roses, bathed with nard and wine, of the dancing girls of Sybaris!_ '_The ancient world knew thee not, oh sterile flower! thou wast never enwoven in its chaplets of delirious perfume.