sought for incessantly by the great, explain the normal ugliness of
the Parisian physiognomy. It is only in the Orient that the human race
presents a magnificent figure, but that is an effect of the constant
calm affected by those profound philosophers with their long pipes,
their short legs, their square contour, who despise and hold activity
in horror, whilst in Paris the little and the great and the mediocre
run and leap and drive, whipped on by an inexorable goddess, Necessity
--the necessity for money, glory, and amusement. Thus, any face which
is fresh and graceful and reposeful, any really young face, is in
Paris the most extraordinary of exceptions; it is met with rarely.
Should you see one there, be sure it belongs either to a young and
ardent ecclesiastic or to some good abbe of forty with three chins; to
a young girl of pure life such as is brought up in certain
middle-class families; to a mother of twenty, still full of illusions,
as she suckles her first-born; to a young man newly embarked from the
provinces, and intrusted to the care of some devout dowager who keeps
him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some shop assistant who goes to bed
at midnight wearied out with folding and unfolding calico, and rises
at seven o'clock to arrange the window; often again to some man of
science or poetry, who lives monastically in the embrace of a fine
idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste; else to some
self-contented fool, feeding himself on folly, reeking of health, in a
perpetual state of absorption with his own smile; or to the soft and
happy race of loungers, the only folk really happy in Paris, which
unfolds for them hour by hour its moving poetry.

Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to
whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts,
and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also
have a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy