Queen of Beauty

“ Her exquisitely formed nose, her mouth, fresher than a rosebud; the perfect oval of her face, the loveliness of which is only equalled by her graceful bearing, arouses the admiration of all. She is the recognized queen of beauty. ”

“ The queen of beauty said, and smil'd;
(Her rosy breath perfum'd the air
And scatter'd sweet contagion there;
Relenting nature learn'd to languish,
And sicken'd with delightful anguish:)
Receive him, artless yet and young ”

“ A queen devoid of beauty is not queen, She needs the royalty of beauty's mien; God in His harmony has equal ends For cedar that resists, and reed that bends, And good it is a woman sometimes rules, Holds in her hand the power, and manners schools, And laws and mind;—succeeding master proud, With gentle voice and smile she leads the crowd, The sombre human troop. ”

“ First Fame, with the step and the glance of a queen, Came up, and before him bent down her proud knee, And held up a garland, whereon played the sheen Of the beams which insure immortality! Next Wealth, the stern mistress of men, for whose smile They toil like the galley slave,—brought in her hand The fair gems of many an ocean isle, And the diamonds of many a far off land. And Beauty came too, with her blue, laughing eye, Her fair flowing locks, and her soft rosy cheek, And red lips, whose sweet smile told silently The tale which they seemed ashamed to speak. ”

“ And Beauty’s Queen some other way is won.
Or it may solve the riddle, that she lends
Herself to all, and yields herself to none,
Save heavenliest: though claims by men are raised
In hot assurance under shade of doubt:
And numerous are the images bepraised
As Beauty’s Queen, should passion head the rout. ”

“ Beauty, agreeably surprised, gave the charming Prince her hand to rise; they went together into the castle, and Beauty was overjoyed to find, in the great hall, her father and his whole family, whom the beautiful lady, that appeared to her in her dream, had conveyed thither.
"Beauty," said this lady, "come and receive the reward of your judicious choice; you are going to be a great Queen. I hope the throne will not lessen your virtue, nor make you forget yourself. As for you, ladies," said the fairy to Beauty's two sisters, "I know your hearts and all the malice they contain. ”

“ Infinitely lovely is the dark-browed Queen, and she bears in her hand the lotus. Against her, in laughing sunlight, amid green leaves and birdsong, waving merry warning, stands a brighter form—the incarnation of purely earthly beauty—for she is all of earth and life; the Spirit of the Actual and Material; and she is crowned with roses.
These are the Thought-Queens of Greece and India, of France and of Germany. But the Christianity of the middle ages declared that the flower was neither a Rose nor Lotus, and placed in the hand of its Queen of Heaven the Lily of Martyrdom! ”

“ The beauty of the queen was of a style to command respect rather than admiration, obedience rather than love. Majesty was in her form and mien, pride sat on her brow, and in her tones and gestures lived an authority which none dared question or disobey. Well was it for herself and those around her that she was governed by the nicest principles of honor; that her whole life was swayed by the most fervent and conscientious devotional feelings; so that as a queen, as a wife, and as a mother, she was above reproach. ”

“ THE FAITHFUL LOVER All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes,
No lovely thing but echoes some of thee,
Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,
Sighing as fair as thou thyself to be;
Therefore, be not disquieted that I
On other forms turn oft my wandering gaze,
Nor deem it anywise disloyalty:
Nay! 'tis the pious fervour of my eye,
That seeks thy face in every other face.
As in the mirrored salon of a queen,
Flashes from glass to glass, as she walks by,
In sweet reiteration still—the queen!
So is the world for thee to walk in, sweet;
But to see thee is all things to have seen. ”

“ The world could have but one sun, and every man or woman who sought its warmth must be a sun-worshipper. There could be no divided faith, no luminaries in the sky save those which lived by borrowed radiance.
Here in this bright theatre of green and roses poets had sung the praises of this Queen to her unblushing and approving face; here ladies thrice as beautiful as she had begged her to tell them the secret of her beauty, so much greater than that of any living woman ”

“ As, a queen of love and beauty, I lie in thine embrace,
Melting—melting—melting, as a woman only can
When she's a willing captive in the conquering arms of man,
As he towers a god above her, and to yield is not defeat,
For love can own no victor if love with love shall meet?
I still have regal splendor, I still have queenly power,
And—more than all—unfaded is woman's glorious dower. ”

“ And beauty, more than pomp, announc'd the queen.
The bending snow-drop, and the briar-rose,
The simple circle of her crown compose;
Roses of every hue her robe adorn,
Except th' insipid rose without a thorn.
Thro' her thin vest her heighten'd beauties shine;
For earthly gauze was never half so fine.
Of that enchanting age her figure seems,
When smiling nature with the vital beams
Published as the Act directs by T. Cadell, Strand, Febr. 1st. 1788. ”

“ Beauty is your daughter. Her birth is no longer a secret here. The Queen and Prince know who she is. I caused you to direct your steps this way on purpose to inform you; but this is not a fitting place for me to enter into the details of this adventure. Let us enter the Palace. After you have rested yourself there a short time I will relate to you all you desire to know. When you have indulged in the delight which you must feel at finding a daughter so beautiful and so virtuous I will communicate to you another piece of intelligence, which will afford you equal gratification. ”

“ In these days, as in those of antiquity, it is par excellence, the Queen of Flowers, because it is always the most beautiful, and because no other flower can furnish half its charms. To elegance and beauty of form it unites the freshness and brilliance of the most agreeable colors, and, as if nature had showered upon it all her most precious [Pg 207] gifts, it adds to its other qualities a delightful perfume, which alone would suffice to entitle it to a distinguished place among the beautiful and pleasant things of the vegetable kingdom. ”

“ As she grew towards womanhood in the bravest and most amorous court in Europe, the queen-dauphiness became a paragon of beauty, charm, accomplishments, the theme of poets, the despair of lovers innumerable worshipping her from afar. ”

“ Once upon a time there lived a princess who was so beautiful that it was a wonder to look at her. But she was also very vain; and her beauty was of no use or pleasure to anybody, for she sat and looked in her mirror all day long, and never thought of doing anything else.
The mirror was framed in beaten gold, but the gold was not so bright as her shining locks ”

“ Aimée more charms than Venus' self displays! Ye Nymphs in turn your tuneful voices raise. Let all things witness to my passion bear, And vaunt the beauties of my matchless fair!
The Graces gladly quit the Queen of Love To follow one whose smile far more they prize. To see and serve her is a bliss above All that the gods can offer in the skies. Aimée more charms, &c.
One glance from her sweet eyes my heart subdued. All yield to her! all to her empire bow! And till the moment man her beauty viewed None could have loved as all the world must now! Aimée more charms, &c. ”

“ Surely here is poetry—the haughty queen of love and beauty imperiously demands an entrance into the land of shadows that she may recover her beloved. She threatens to break down the very gates of hades and raise the dead to devour the living if her wish is refused. She shrinks at no sacrifice which her love-lighted mission may cost. A great crown is taken from her head, but she stays not. Her jewels and precious stones—her girdle of priceless gems—is taken from her, and still she presses forward in quest of her love. ”

“ Through such tales as "The Sad Queen," and such verses as "The Dirge of the Four Cities," and "The House of Usna" even eyes of little vision may see "eternal beauty wandering on her way," leaving about them a glamour as recurrent to the mind as sunset to the skies. ”

“ The artists and donors and priests forgot nothing which, in their judgment, could set off the authority, elegance, and refinement of the Queen of Heaven; even the young ladies-in-waiting are there, figured by the twelve Virtues and the fourteen Beatitudes; and, indeed, though men are plenty and some of them are handsome, women give the tone, the charm, and mostly the intelligence. The Court of Mary is feminine, and its charms are Grace and Love; perhaps even more grace than love, in a social sense, if you look at Beauty and Friendship among Beatitudes. ”

“ Don't stay too late.
(Exit Jean.)
FOURTH SCENE.
THE QUEEN. THE PAINTER.THE DEAF MAID OF HONOUR (who seats herself behind the screen) . THE SLEEPY MAID OF HONOUR (who falls asleep directly on a chair near the door on the left) .
The Queen.
Well, master, tell me: what is Genius doing?
The Painter.
Oh, your Majesty, he is pursuing Beauty.
The Queen.
Yet since Beauty lingers no more on earth, your genius will soon grow weary.
The Painter.
How so? Does your Majesty think it roams in the sky? It lingers just at the goal and cries: Oh behold! and what thou beholdest, that give to eternity! ”

“ At the entrance of the road twenty young females of the most exquisite beauty waited and conducted Kharavadana through the sweet bower to the mansion. When it was reached, the minister sat down on a most richly furnished gold couch, and ordered the females there to bring the queen. Ten females arranged themselves on each side of an ivory palanquin, and started, apparently, to bring the queen in it. “These females themselves resemble Rambhâ, [20] Urvaśî, [20] &c. A woman who has beauty superior to the heads of these females must, of course, be of the greatest beauty imaginable in this world. ”

“ And I said, let her who is full of beauty and admiration, sitting like the queen of flowers in majesty among the daughters of women, let her watch lest vanity enter her heart, beguiling her to rest proudly upon her own strength; let her remember she standeth upon slippery places, "and be not high minded, but fear." ”

“ But suffer also his mother, a Queen, to bless you!'
Beauty turned again to her lover and saw that [Pg 129] he, who had been a Beast, was indeed the Prince of her dreams and handsomer than the day. So they were married and lived happy ever after; nay, so happy were they that all over the world folks told one another and set down in writing this wonderful history of Beauty and the Beast.
MORAL
Maidens, from this tale of Beauty
Learn, and in your memory write—
Daily leads a Path of Duty
Through the Garden of Delight ”

“ No jewels sparkled on her brow, so high, so purely fair,
No gems were mingled ’mid her waves of dark and glossy hair;
And yet was she, amidst them all, despite their dazzling mien,
A woman in her gentle grace—in majesty a queen. ”

“ An invisible hand behind the scene has dropped a shadow over the light of day draped in its brilliant and gorgeous glories. When the curtain rises again, the Queen of Night, more lovely than any queen of kingdoms, arrayed in her robes of royalty—for God has dressed her with the glories of heaven—appears, reflecting her full orb in the water, when an unbroken trail of silvery light apparently connects the two worlds. ”

“ For her influence—the perception that it aroused in me—had always been that of a young woman in the bloom of her career—such a woman, with bright auburn hair and sparkling dark eyes, as my fancy had conjured up standing in the presence of royalty. The century that intervened, while denying all hope of confirming this vision in the flesh, yet assured me that her freshness and beauty were beyond the reach of time; that she was an immortal reality, secure and unchangeable. ”

“ The tenderness and caprice of the woman, and the pride and dignity of the Queen, are all there. She would not be the consummate artist she is if she could not give them. But even through your tears you see that it is art. It is, indeed, concealed by its own perfection, but it is not lost in the loveliness of the character it suggests, as might be the case with a greatly inferior artist. ”

“ And eyes incensed with love for all they see,
A wonder more to be adored than wooed,
On whom the grace of conscious womanhood
Adorning every little thing she does
Sits like enchantment, making glorious
A careless pose, a casual attitude;
Around her lovely shoulders mantle-wise
Hath come the realm of those old fabulous queens
Whose storied loves are Art's rich heritage,
To keep alive in this our latter age
That force that moving through sweet Beauty's means
Lifts up Man's soul to towering enterprise. ”

“ AN HOUR WITH THE PAINTERS 167
visitor always lingers longest. The face is the purest expression of girlish loveliness possible to art. The Virgin floats upborne by rosy clouds, flocks of pink cherubs flutter at her feet waving palm-branches. The golden air is thick with suggestions of dim celestial faces, but nothing mars the imposing solitude of the Queen of Heaven, shrined alone, throned in the luminous azure. ”

“ The face of the Madonna alone shone with the delicate brilliance of alabaster within which glows a light. Queen of Heaven, she was shown to men in the gloom of twilight, in a subterranean cavern, in the most secret of the recesses of nature, perhaps the last refuge of ancient Pan and the wood nymphs—she, the mystery of mysteries, the mother of the God-man, in the very bosom of mother earth. ”

“ Or a woman, worn and broken, her rough hands made shapeless by toil, may seem to have no claim to beauty as the word is commonly understood. Sleepless nights, perchance, have dimmed her eyes, suffering and sacrifice have seamed and marked her face, but those to whom she has given herself see only the great nobleness of her nature, the royalty of her soul. ”