elf to bear all the concomitant evils--as becomes a
professed sage; and I own I admire the art with which Pisistratus has
drawn the kind of woman most likely to suit a philosopher--"

Pisistratus bows, and looks round complacently; but recoils from two
very peevish and discontented faces feminine.

MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence).--"Not only as regards mildness
of temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the
very person of the object of his choice. For you evidently remember,
Pisistratus, the reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage:
[Long sentence in Greek]"

Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias by heart, and
nods acquiescingly.

MR. CAXTON.--"That is, my dears, 'The woman you would marry is either
handsome or ugly: if handsome, she is koine,--namely, you don't have
her to yourself; if ugly, she is poine,--that is, a fury.' But, as it
is observed in Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a
wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, in his tragedy
of 'Menalippus,' uses an admirable expression to designate women of the
proper degree of matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would
select. He calls this degree stata forma,--a rational, mediocre sort of
beauty, which is not liable to be either koine or poine. And Favorinus,
who was a remarkably sensible man, and came from Provence--the male
inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves on their
knowledge of love and ladies--calls this said stata forma the beauty of
wives,--the uxorial beauty. Ennius says that women of a stata forma are
almost always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is described as
possessing this stata forma; and it is the nicety of your observation in
this respect, which I like the most in the whole of your description of
a philosopher's matrimonial courtship, Pisistratus (excepting only the
stroke of the spectacles), for it shows that you had properly considered
the opinion of Bias, and mastered all the counter logic suggested in
Book v., chapter xi., of Aulus Gellius."

"For all that," said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, with a smile
in the eye and a pout of the lip, "I don't remember that Pisistratus, in
the days when he wished to be most complimentary, ever assured me that I
had a stata forma,--a rational, mediocre sort of beauty."

"And I think," observed my uncle, "that when he comes to his real
heroine, whoever she may be,