How many sauces have been spoiled by cooks trying to improve what was already very good!
How many wings have been singed for not knowing how to keep at a respectful distance from the fire or the light!
No doubt there is such a thing as perfection; but who is perfect and what is perfect in this world, except that ineffable lady who, some weeks ago, took me severely to task for having written an article in which I advised my readers to be good, but not to overdo it?
The firmaments are perfect, some flowers are perfect, but these are not the work of man. Nature herself seems to have divided her gifts so as to have no absolute perfection in her creatures. The nightingale has song, but no plumage; the peacock has plumage, but his voice makes you stop your ears.
And the women! Well, yes, the women—let us speak of them.
Which of us, my dear fellow-men, has not admired a woman of ours whose toilet was finished? We thought she looked beautiful then, we admired her, and we put on our gloves proudly, saying:
'She is coming.' Yet she did not come. True, her hat was on and fixed when we saw her, and we thought that she was ready. Not a bit of it. She was not.
After she has finished dressing, and is absolutely ready to go out, she will begin to fret and potter about in her room for another hour. She goes from looking-glass to looking-glass. That is the time when she thinks of the finishing touches.
She pulls her hat a little more to the right, then a little more to the left, in order to ascertain how that hat can be improved. She touches and retouches her hair.
Her complexion is beautiful, a natural rosy pink, for which she ought to return thanks, all day long, to the most generous and kind Nature who gave it to her. But, at the last moment, she thinks that this, too, might be improved.