Respecting
themselves they said, that in the world they had been orators, from the
kingdom of France, and had applied themselves to the study of eloquence,
and that now they were seized with a desire of making an oration on the
origin of beauty. When this was made known in the neighbourhood, the
multitude flocked together to hear them. Upon receiving this
information, I hastened also myself, and entered the palace, and saw the
three men standing in the midst, dressed in long robes of a sapphire
color, which, having threads of gold in their texture at every change of
posture shone as if they had been golden. They stood ready to speak
behind a kind of stage; and presently one of them rose on a step behind
the stage, and delivered his sentiments concerning the origin of the
beauty of the female sex, in the following words.
382. "What is the origin of beauty but love, which, when it flows into
the eyes of youths, and sets them on becomes beauty? therefore love and
beauty are the same thing; for love, from an inmost principle, tinges
the face of a marriageable maiden with a kind of flame, from the
transparence of which is derived the dawn and bloom of her life.
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