ABSTRACT
The next morning Mrs Mason met them first in the garden; and she desired Caroline to look at a bed of tulips, / that were then in their highest state of perfection. I, added she, choose to have every kind of flower in my garden, as the succession enables me to vary my daily prospect, and gives it the charm of variety; yet these tulips afford me less plessure than most1[of the other sort which] I cultivate - and I will tell you why - they are only beautiful. Listen to my 2[distinction]; - good features, and a fine complexion, I term bodily beauty. Like the streaks in the tulip, they please the eye for a moment; but this uniformity soon tires, and the active mind flies off to something else. The soul of beauty, my dear children, consists in the body gracefully exhibiting the emotions and variations of the informing mind. If truth, humanity and knowledge inhabit the breast, the eyes will beam with a mild lustre, modesty will suffuse the cheeks, and smiles of innocent joy play over all the features. At first sight, regularity and colour will attract, and have the advantage, because the hidden springs are not directly set in motion; but when internal goodness is reflected, every / other kind of beauty, the shadow of it, withers away before it, as the sun obscures a lamp.
