Booth Tarkington 
The Beautiful Lady 

Is there something about aesthetic beauty that can soothe the soul of even the most troubled individual? That's the question at the center of Booth Tarkington's eminently entertaining short novel The Beautiful Lady. In the story, a down-on-his-luck Italian who is barely scraping by in Paris has his whole life turned upside down by a chance encounter with the enchanting temptress referred to in the book's title.