"Do you mean that as a compliment?" she inquired.
"Well—no. But from a mind constituted like yours, I should have looked for a different interpretation."
"Then you think that my mind ought to prostrate itself before a brawny development of muscles?"
"No, no; remember, you spoke of gentleness."
"That is the mind of woman," she answered, "taking its natural place, and asserting its moral power. For gentleness, like beauty, is a moral power."
"Beauty a moral power?" I exclaimed.
"That is its true definition, unless you would degrade it by lowering it to the standard of the senses," she replied, kindling as she spoke. "It elevates the imagination; we feel a moral exaltation in the contemplation of it; it is the essential grace of nature; it refines and dignifies our whole being; and appreciated in this aspect, it inspires the purest and noblest aspirations."
This creed of beauty was very unlike any thing I had anticipated from her. If any body in a crowded drawing-room had spoken in this style, I should have expected that she would have smiled somewhat contemptuously upon them.
"Your definition is imperfect," I ventured to say; "I do not dispute it as far as it goes, but it is defective in one article of faith."
"Oh! I am not sent from the stars—though they have voted me Astræa—to convert heathens. Pray, let us have your article of faith."