beau idéal🔊

I never knew any debatable point not maintained on both sides by unanswerable arguments; and yet you are angry that he has not thrown every advantage aside to enact your beau-idéal of patriotic excellence.

"The Duc de Guise," said Mercœur, "is quite my beau ideal of the days of chivalry. His adventures, whether of love or war, seem like the old Provençal ballads; my only marvel is, where in these days he finds his romantic matériel."