Ah, Geoffroy, I do not know whether the critics of the time of Pericles were better than those of the age of Bonaparte, first of that name; but I do know that at least one or two of ours can write in a better style....
You think not?
Well, then, here is a portrait of the same person, written by a critic in 1835. Notice the progress in style made in the thirty-three years between Geoffroy's time and that of Théophile Gautier.
"If I mistake not, Mademoiselle Georges is like a medallion from Syracuse or an Isis from an Æginæan bas-relief. The arch of her eyebrows, traced with incomparable fineness and purity, extends over dark eyes which are full of fire and flashes of tragic lightning. Her nose is thin and straight, with obliquely cut nostrils which dilate when she is passionately moved; her whole profile is grand in its simple uniformity of line. The mouth is strong, superbly haughty and sharp at its corners, like the lips of an avenging Nemesis, who awaits the hour to let loose her iron-clawed lion; yet over her lips flickers a charming smile, full of regal grace; and it would be impossible to believe, when she chooses to express the tender passions, that she has hurled forth, but a short while before, a classic imprecation or a modern anathema. Her chin is full of character and of determination; it is firmly set, and its majestic curves relieve a profile that belongs rather to a goddess than to a mortal. Mademoiselle Georges possesses, in common with all the beautiful women of pagan ages, a broad forehead, full at the temples, but not high, very like that of the Venus de Milo, a wilful, voluptuous, powerful forehead. There is a remarkable peculiarity about her neck: instead of rounding off inwardly from the nape, it forms a full and unbroken curve and unites the shoulders to the base of her head without the slightest flaw. The set of her arms is somewhat formidable by reason of the strength of the muscles and the firmness of contour; one of her shoulder-straps would make a girdle for the waist of a medium-sized woman; but they are very white, very clear, and they end in a wrist of childlike fragility and tiny dimpled hands—hands which are truly regal, fashioned to hold the sceptre and to clasp the dagger's hilt in the plays of Æschylus and Euripides."
Thank you, my dear Théophile, for allowing me to quote that splendid passage, and pardon me for placing you in such bad company. Faugh!
I now return to Geoffroy. He continues:—
"Talent responded to beauty. The theatre was packed throughout and thoroughly excited; the First Consul and all his family were in the box to the right of the proscenium; he clapped his hands several times, but this did not prevent some signs of opposition breaking out at the line—
'Vous savez, et Calchas mille fois vous l'a dit.' ..."
Excuse me! I must again interrupt myself, or rather, I must interrupt Geoffroy.
The reader knows that it was the custom for the audience to look forward to the way in which debutantes delivered this line.