The contemplation of beauty, the inherently corrupt soul could transform its love from the physical and material into a purely spiritual love of God. The first representation of the goddess represents innocence itself, a divine beauty free from any hint of physical and the sensual. It is this form of beauty that the soul, aspiring to salvation was expected to contemplate. Woman is the most admirable handiwork of God, in her true place and character. The heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it. This woman’s view, a woman’s, whose whole sphere of action is in the heart, and who can conceive of no higher nor wider one.  And man’s desire of Earthly experience draws him to rebirth, and he is born into a form that fits nature as a glove a hand; the soul of a warrior passes into the robust form of a warrior; the soul of a poet into the sensitive cerebral form of a poet, he is still in development. I have know’d that sweetest and best of women ever since afore her First, which Mr. Harris who was dreadful timid went and stopped his ears in a swimming pool, and never took his hands away or come out once till he was showed the baby, wen bein’ took with fits, the doctor collared him and laid him on his back upon the airy stones, and she was told to easy her mind, his owls was organs.

And I have know’d her when he has hurt her feelin’ art by sayin’ of his ninth that it was one to [sic] many, if not two, while that dear innocent was cooin’ in his face, which thrive it did through bandy.  Artist of genius and inspiration were considered to be different from everyone else, and to be guided in their work by insight that was considered divine in origin. Many believed that the goals of truth and beauty were not reached by following the universal rules and laws of classical antiquity, notions of proportion and mathematics. Nor would fidelity to visual reality guarantee beautiful results; in fact, given the fallen condition of the World, quite the opposite was more likely, studies of fellow citizens had demonstrated. This represents a divine frenzy, of the creative act, to transcend the conditions of everyday life. Art now exceeded reality. It is a window, not upon nature, but upon divine inspiration itself. It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the World is a finer one than the last. Like busts in marble, so does out individual fate exist in the limestone of time. Change and change love to deal with men’s settled plans, not with their idle vagaries. This luxuriant and conspicuous display of wealth is deliberate. And through we might want to read into this image our own sense of its decadence, fortune loves to mingle himself in all events.