[Illustration: L'EMBARQUEMENT POUR L'ÎLE DE CYTHÈRE.
_Watteau._]

All the fascinations of a woman in repose: languor, idleness, abandon,
leaning back, reclining at full length, nonchalance, the cadences of
pose, the pretty air of profiles bending over the scales of love
(_gammes d'amour_), the receding curves of the bosom, the serpentine
lines and undulations, the suppleness of the female body, the play of
slender fingers on the handle of a fan and the indiscretions of high
heels beyond the skirts, and the happy fortune of deportment, and the
coquetry of actions, and the management of the shoulders, and all that
knowledge that was taught to women by the mirrors of the last
century,--the mimicry of grace!--lives in Watteau with its blossom and
its accent, immortal and fixed in a more vital proof than the bosom of
the wife of Diomedes moulded by the ashes of Pompeii. And if this grace
is animated by Watteau, if he looses it from repose and immobility, if
he renders it active and moving, it seems that it works with a rhythm
and that its measured pace is a dance led by some harmony.

How decorative is the form of woman, and her grace! O nature, wherein
the painter's poetic fancies wander! O landscape! O stage fit for a
desirable life! a helpful land, gallant woods, meadows full of music,
groves propitious to the sports of Echo! cradling trees hung with
baskets of flowers! desert places far from the jealous world, touched by
the magic brush of a Servandoni, refreshed with fountains, peopled with
marbles and statues, and Naiads, that spot the trembling shadow of the
leaves! jets of water suddenly springing up in the midst of farm-yards!
an amiable and radiant countryside! Suns of apotheosis, beautiful lights
sleeping on the lawns, penetrating and translucent verdure without one