Our boasted civilisation has not even taught her what to eat, as
it certainly has not increased her appetite; and she knows not--
what every country fellow knows--that without plenty of butter and
other fatty matters, she is not likely to keep even warm. Better
to eat nasty fat bacon now, than to supply the want of it some few
years hence by nastier cod-liver oil. But there is no one yet to
tell her that, and a dozen other equally simple facts, for her own
sake, and for the sake of that coming Demos which she is to bring
into the world; a Demos which, if we can only keep it healthy in
body and brain, has before it so splendid a future: but which, if
body and brain degrade beneath the influence of modern barbarism,
is but too likely to follow the Demos of ancient Byzantium, or of
modern Paris.

Ay, but her intellect. She is so clever, and she reads so much,
and she is going to be taught to read so much more.

Ah well--there was once a science called Physiognomy. The Greeks,
from what I can learn, knew more of it than any people since:
though the Italian painters and sculptors must have known much;
far more than we. In a more scientific civilisation there will be
such a science once more: but its laws, though still in the
empiric stage, are not altogether forgotten by some. Little
children have often a fine and clear instinct of them. Many
cultivated and experienced women have a fine and clear instinct of
them likewise. And some such would tell us that there is
intellect in plenty in the modern Nausicaa: but not of the
quality which they desire for their country's future good. Self-
consciousness, eagerness, volubility, petulance in countenance, in
gesture, and in voice--which last is too often most harsh and