only would be worthy of her, or a monster. If virtue consists in the

protection of an inaccessible position, Josiana possessed all possible

virtue, but without any innocence. She disdained intrigues; but she

would not have been displeased had she been supposed to have engaged in

some, provided that the objects were uncommon, and proportioned to the

merits of one so highly placed. She thought little of her reputation,

but much of her glory. To appear yielding, and to be unapproachable, is

perfection. Josiana felt herself majestic and material. Hers was a

cumbrous beauty. She usurped rather than charmed. She trod upon hearts.

She was earthly. She would have been as much astonished at being proved

to have a soul in her bosom as wings on her back. She discoursed on

Locke; she was polite; she was suspected of knowing Arabic.

To be "the flesh" and to be woman are two different things. Where a

woman is vulnerable, on the side of pity, for instance, which so readily

turns to love, Josiana was not. Not that she was unfeeling. The ancient

comparison of flesh to marble is absolutely false. The beauty of flesh

consists in not being marble: its beauty is to palpitate, to tremble, to

blush, to bleed, to have firmness without hardness, to be white without

being cold, to have its sensations and its infirmities; its beauty is to

be life, and marble is death.

Flesh, when it attains a certain degree of beauty, has almost a claim to

the right of nudity; it conceals itself in its own dazzling charms as in

a veil. He who might have looked upon Josiana nude would have perceived

her outlines only through a surrounding glory. She would have shown

herself without hesitation to a satyr or a eunuch. She had the

303

The Man Who Laughs