Subjective and Objective

Long ago I came to the conclusion that all women were beautiful if you looked at them in the individual way God made each to be looked at—not demanding "identi-kit beauty." True, there are some with such deep infelicity of feature or character that I've never been able to apply that rule to them. But as a general rule it has seemed to work.

Some 15 springs ago I was waiting for a bus in front of the student union, where three young women were improving the vista with their presence. After a while I noticed that my eyes lingered longer on one of the three, and wondered why. All seemed equally cheerful, and the other two had more classical figures. One of the other two was displaying a good deal of herself, which is a sure-fire attention-getter. Still, I thought the first more attractive.

After a few minutes I realized why. The first woman resembled my wife.