Had woman always been as true as she is fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely are they intertwined." "Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or the beautiful and avenging Medea.

Had man never been false to his vows, we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira.

Ah! this is lovely!" "Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library?
This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness and freshness of eternal youth.

Do you not trace a resemblance to yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble, breathe the eloquence of love?
How charmingly the moonbeams play upon her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!" He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply the music of his voice.

Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad basins receiving the cooling showers.
"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the banquet at which your senses are now revelling." "But I owe it all to you.