Not only did the daughter of Casa-Real derive from her Spanish blood the intuition of that science which varies pleasure and makes it infinite, but she possessed the spirit of unbounded self-devotion, which is the genius of her sex as grace is that of beauty.  Her love was a blind fanaticism which, at a nod, would have sent her joyously to her death.  Balthazar’s own delicacy had exalted the generous emotions of his wife, and inspired her with an imperious need of giving more than she received.  This mutual exchange of happiness which each lavished upon the other, put the mainspring of her life visibly outside of her personality, and filled her words, her looks, her actions, with an ever-growing love.  Gratitude fertilized and varied the life of each heart; and the certainty of being all in all to one another excluded the paltry things of existence, while it magnified the smallest accessories.

The deformed woman whom her husband thinks straight, the lame woman whom he would not have otherwise, the old woman who seems ever young —­are they not the happiest creatures of the feminine world?  Can human passion go beyond it?  The glory of a woman is to be adored for a defect.  To forget that a lame woman does not walk straight may be the glamour of a moment, but to love her because she is lame is the deification of her defects.  In the gospel of womanhood it is written:  “Blessed are the imperfect, for theirs is the kingdom of Love.”  If this be so, surely beauty is a misfortune; that fugitive flower counts for too much in the feeling that a woman inspires; often she is loved for her beauty as another is married for her money.  But the love inspired or bestowed by a woman disinherited of the frail advantages pursued by the sons of Adam, is true love, the mysterious passion, the ardent embrace of souls, a sentiment for which the day of disenchantment never comes.  That woman has charms unknown to the world, from whose jurisdiction she withdraws herself:  she is beautiful with a meaning; her glory lies in making her imperfections forgotten, and thus she constantly succeeds in doing so.

The celebrated attachments of history were nearly all inspired by women in whom the vulgar mind would have found defects,—­Cleopatra, Jeanne de Naples, Diane de Poitiers, Mademoiselle de la Valliere, Madame de Pompadour; in fact, the majority of the women whom love has rendered famous were not without infirmities and imperfections, while the greater number of those whose beauty is cited as perfect came to some tragic end of love.

This apparent singularity must have a cause.  It may be that man lives more by sentiment than by sense; perhaps the physical charm of beauty is limited, while the moral charm of a woman without beauty is infinite.  Is not this the moral of the fable on which the Arabian Nights are based?  An ugly wife of Henry VIII. might have defied the axe, and subdued to herself the inconstancy of her master.