CHAPTER XXV.
Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine. I saluted as old acquaintances two gods with hawk heads that were cut in profile upon a stone and placed at each end of a strangely depicted Zodiac, and although I saw the picture for the first time upon an overcast day, there came to me, and of that I am sure, a sudden impression of great heat given out by a pitiless sun.
CHAPTER XXVI.
During the winter following the departure of my brother, I passed many of my leisure hours in his room painting the pictures in the “Voyage to Polynesia” which he had given me. With great care I first colored the flowers and the groups of birds. After that I painted the men. When I came to color the two young Tahitian girls who were standing at the edge of the sea (the illustrator had been inspired to depict them as nymphs) I made them white, all white and pink like a pretty little doll—I thought them very beautiful done so.
It was reserved for me to learn later than their color is different, and their charms quite otherwise.
My ideas of beauty have changed a great deal since that time, and it would have astonished me very much if I had then been told what faces I was to find most charming in the strange course of my later life. But almost all children are under the dominion of some fancy which dies out when they become men and women.
The majority of people, during the period of their innocence and youth, similarly admire the same type; sweet, regular features, and the fresh pink and white tints. Only at a later time does their estimate of what constitutes beauty vary, then it accords with the culture of their spirit, and especially does it follow in the wake of their developing intelligence.