H. B. Marriott Watson

“ There is none other whom her dainty gaieties so become. She has in truth sedater moments as in this picture; but I am assured that her eyes go no further than the eyes of her happy sisters, her lips whisper nothing more. This visage of shy solemnity is not most notable of her, and yet I love its mute expression even as I love her speaking face. Her winsome smile in life possesses all my idle hours; her sober gaze from out the mellow canvas moves me to draw a little nearer to her through my daily work. Her gaiety is sweet to me, yet somehow I prefer her picture to be grave and quiet. ”

“ Smiles are fitter to her need than sombre meditation. That fragile, exquisite life shall be wrecked upon no austere denial. Let the shadow pass! It is nothing in the sunlight.
Thus have I come to read the changing humours of this pictured face, which often when I fix my gaze upon it seems to be instinct with gracious humanity. It is so perfect in its delicate flesh that (methinks) it needs but a little to break through the rigid surface of the canvas and descend to very life. Immured and pent within the smooth dead medium breathes the soul of one, real and palpitant ”

“ To bow before her is the common lot; man's adoration and her beauty are two correlatives of fate; the one is born and moveth with the other. Many there be that live upon her smile; there is but one that hath taken her picture for his heart. ”