Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 6.djvu/495

 took out the pictures, spread six of them upon the table, glanced over them hastily, and then shuffled them together as if they had been a pack of cards. "Capital!" she exclaimed: "they are done to the very life. This one, for instance, holding a pinch of snuff to her nose, is the very image of Madame S—, whom we shall meet this evening; and this old lady with the cat is not unlike my grand-aunt; that figure holding the skein of thread resembles our old milliner. We can find an original for every one of these ugly figures; and even amongst the men, I have somewhere or other seen such an old fellow bent double, and also a close resemblance to the figure holding the thread. They are full of fun, these engravings, and admirably executed."

Amelia, who had glanced carelessly at the pictures and instantly withdrawn her eyes, inquired how they could look for resemblances in such things. "One deformity is like another, just as the beautiful ever resembles the beautiful. Our minds are irresistibly attracted by the latter in the same degree as they are repelled by the former.

Sinclair.—But our fancy and our wit find more amusement in deformity than in beauty. Much can be made of the former, but nothing at all of the latter.

"But beauty exalts, whilst deformity degrades, us," observed Armidoro, who, from his post at the window, had paid silent attention to all that had occurred. Without approaching the table, he now withdrew into the adjoining cabinet.

All clubs have their peculiar epochs. The interest the members take in each other, and their friendly agreement, are of a fluctuating character. The club of which we speak had now attained its zenith. The members were, for the most part, men of refinement, or at least of calm and quiet deportment: they mutually recognised each other's value, and allowed all