They had long since learned that the homage paid to weakness is
illusory; that the power of beauty is short-lived. With none of
the devotion which had made the convent the time-honored refuge
of tender and exalted souls, finding little solace in the
domestic affections which played so small a role in their lives,
they turned the whole force of their clear and flexible minds to
this new species of sovereignty. Their keenness of vision, their
consummate skill in the adaptation of means to ends, their
knowledge of the world, their practical intelligence, their
instinct of pleasing, all fitted them for the part they assumed.
They distinctly illustrated the truth that "our ideal is not out
of ourselves, but in ourselves wisely modified." The intellect
of these women was rarely the dupe of the emotions. Their
clearness was not befogged by sentiment, nor, it may be added,
were their characters enriched by it. "The women of the
eighteenth century loved with their minds and not with their
hearts," said the Abbe Galiani. The very absence of the
qualities so essential to the highest womanly character,
according to the old poetic types, added to their success. To be
simple and true is to forget often to consider effects.
Spontaneity is not apt to be discriminating, and the emotions are
not safe guides to worldly distinction. It is not the artist who
feels the most keenly, who sways men the most powerfully; it is
the one who has most perfectly mastered the art of swaying men.
Self-sacrifice and a lofty sense of duty find their rewards in
the intangible realm of the spirit, but they do not find them in
a brilliant society whose foundations are laid in vanity and
sensualism. "The virtues, though superior to the sentiments, are
not so agreeable," said Mme. du Deffand; and she echoed the
spirit of an age of which she was one of the most striking