This simple rule made Paris shopping easy.
I had determined, as this time Paris was a means and not an end, being merely incidental to my week-end trip, I would not go into the galleries, and perhaps become unduly attached to something I might find there.
A casual visit to the Louvre let me go through several rooms of pictures and statues unmoved, when suddenly I met my Waterloo.
All unexpectedly I came upon the Venus of Milo. It was a revelation. The casts and photographs I had hitherto seen of it I now discovered to be no more like the original statue than the moon is like the sun.
The form, perhaps, is not so inadequately represented, but the face, as shown in cast or picture, is a sadly futile attempt at imitation.
The real Venus has the most marvellous face in the world. There is an ineffable beauty of feature, and an exquisite repose of expression, that betokens no one affection, but the glorification of all that is great and beautiful.
But the fascination is unexplainable. I only know that into that wonderful face I could gaze for hours; but never again do I want to see a reproduction of it, of any sort.
In the Louvre, too, I found the Mona Lisa. Here again I had been misled by photographs and “art prints,” and was all unprepared for the witchery of that baffling, bewildering smile. By a queer correlation of ideas, my mind reverted to the Laughing Cavalier, and I wondered if these two were smiling at the same thought.
Undesirous of seeing more at this time, I returned to my open, victoria-like cab. Those foolish Paris cabs! They seem so exactly like the vehicle in which Bella Wilfer elegantly sat, when she begged her parent, “Loll, ma, loll!”
But they are fine to see out of, and a city like Paris, made for show, should have cabs of wide outlook.