The hand, the arm, support the head, the sidelong glance from which is so full of sweetness. One might call it a "Mona Lisa" reposing. This head feels the need of resting on the supporting hand, a delicate support like the handle of a vase. Like an urn about to pour out its water, its thought, it inclines.
Lying back on the cushion, the head is in high relief. The features are placed according to their due regard, which is the very soul of balance. It has made the eyes symmetrical; the eyebrows straight; the nose, where beauty and symmetry meet, expressive of a wholesome conformity.
When a woman is very beautiful, she has the head of a lion. From the lion is copied that splendid regularity of the eyes, which the oval of the face accentuates. The tawny mane is also lion-like in its regularity and majesty, without any other expression.
Arches are formed without effort of all the parts of the eye. The hinges of the eyes open and close. The open mouth keeps back neither the thoughts nor the words that have been spoken. There is no need for her to speak. Her age, her thoughts, all is a confession here—the features, the arch of the frank, noble mouth, as well as the form of the nose and the sensitive nostrils.
And this infantile glance under a woman's eyelid! Our soul demands that, by an agreement with the heavens, the feminine glance should be celestial.
LA PENSÉE.