Sabine Baring-Gould

“ Oliver Menaida had spent a good many years in Portugal, and had seen flat faces, sallow complexions, and dark hair—women without delicacy of bone and grace of figure—and, on his return to England, the first woman he saw was Judith—this little, pale, red-gold-headed creature, with eyes iridescent and full of a soul that made them sparkle and change color with every change of emotion in the heart and of thought in the busy brain. ”

“ Looking at that anxious face, at those lustrous eyes, set in lids that were reddened with weeping, he knew that the iron had entered into her soul, that she had suffered and was suffering then; nay, more, that the life opening before her would be one of almost unrelieved contrariety and sorrow. ”

“ Menaida shook his head.
"There are a deal of things that belong to all things," he said. "I was on the down with my little pet and idol, Judith, and we had the lantern, and it was that lantern that proved fatal to your vessel."
"What, father! We owe our wreck to you?"
"No, and yet it must be suffered to be so supposed, I must allow many hard words to be rapped out against me, my want of consideration, my scatterbrainedness. I admit that I am not a Solomon, but I should not be such an ass, such a criminal, as on a night like the last to walk over the downs above the cliffs with a lantern. ”