"Throw me into a pit, but give me a palace." Press the
prostitute and the bandit, mix Tartarus and Avernus, stir
the fatal vat of social mire, pile all the deformities of
matter together, and what issues therefrom? The immaterial.

The ideal is the Greek fire of the gutter. It burns there.
Its brightness in the impure water dazzles the thinker
and touches his heart. Nini Lassive stirs and brightens
with Fiesehi's bilets-doux that sombre lamp of Vesta which
is in the heart of every woman, and which is as
inextinguishable in that of the courtesan as in that of the
Carmelite. This is what explains the word "virgin," accorded
by the Bible equally to the foolish virgin and to the wise
virgin.

That was so yesterday, it is so to-day. Here again the
surface has changed, the bottom remains the same. The
frank harshness of the Middle Ages has been somewhat
softened in our times. Ribald is pronounced light o' love;
Toinon answers to the name of Olympia or Imperia;
Thomasse-la-Maraude is called Mme. de Saint Alphonse.
The caterpillar was real, the butterfly is false; that is the
only change. Clout has become chiffon.

Regnier used to say "sows "; we say "fillies."

Other fashions; same manners.

The foolish virgin is lugubriously immutable.