THE Louvre, as you know, is a museum where beautiful things and ancient things are kept safe—and this is wisely done, for old age and beauty are both alike venerable. Among the most touching¹ of the antiquities² treasured in the Louvre Museum is a fragment of marble, worn and cracked in many places, but on which can still be clearly made out two maidens³ holding each a flower in her hand. Both are beautiful figures; they were young when Greece was young. They say it was the age of perfect beauty. The sculptor⁴ who has left us their image represents them in profile, offering each other one of those lotus flowers that were deemed sacred. In the blue cups of their blossoms the world quaffed⁵ oblivion of the ills of life. Our men of learning have given much thought to these two maidens. They have turned over many books to find out about them, big books, bound some in parchment, others in vellum, and many in pig-skin; but they have never fathomed⁶ the reason why the two beautiful maidens hold up a flower in their hands.