Vedette

“ I confessed to her the admiration and wonder which her virtue and her charms had created in me, and concluded by intreating her, in the most urgent manner, to let me once more, the following day, speak with her, if it were only to bid her a long and last adieu!
The idea of parting is ever attended with a charm which works upon the feelings and heart in a peculiarly forcible manner. ”

“ She had manifested, also, a spirit of daring and love of adventure, together with a real delight in the fresh air and free life of the plains, that had charmed the rough men into whose company she was thrown, and rendered her the idol of them all. ”

“ As she stood before him beautifully strong and pure and fresh and clean in mind and heart and body, her sweet personality, the spirit of her complete womanhood swept to him—appealing, calling, exhilarating, invigorating, strengthening, as he had often felt the early air of the sun-filled morning sweeping over mountain and mesa and desert plain. ”

“ Strangely that instant he thought of her story—the coming of The Guest—the thought she had held all the years, the strange restless beauty of its ideal—the mothering beauty of it that seemed to him now endless in power. Such a mystery came to him from her arms—as if she were holding them up to receive perfection, some great spiritual [Pg 205] gift.... It was startlingly native to her, this expectancy—the pure receptivity of it, and the thought of beauty in her mind. A woman could command heaven with that gesture, he thought, and call to earth an archangel—if her ideal were pure enough. ”

“ The presence of the beloved one always shortens time, but this hour passed amid peculiar reflections. I repeated to myself the good qualities which she had just unfolded so freely before me,—her circumspect cheerfulness, her naïveté combined with self-consciousness, her hilarity with foresight,—qualities which seem incompatible, but which nevertheless were found together in her, and gave a pleasing character to her outward appearance. But now I had to make more serious reflections upon myself, which were somewhat prejudicial to a free state of cheerfulness. ”

“ I formed with her an enduring friendship that was an enduring exasperation—“why do you play the part with a bent back and a squeak in the voice? How can you be a character actor, you who hate all our life, you who belong to a life that is a vision?” ”

“ To those high souls who know their kinship the veil is lifted, her face is revealed, and her face is like a bride's. Petty as was my everyday life, with the fears and timidities which abnormal sensitiveness begets, in those moments of vision I understood instinctively the high mood they must keep who would walk with the highest ”

“ With his want of stature and presence, his upward look at her, his small, smooth head, his seasoned sallowness and simple eyes, he might at this instant have struck a spectator as a figure actually younger and slighter than the ample, accomplished girl whose gesture protected and even a little patronised him. ”

“ Well, at any rate she had had the interest and the companionship, and these had not been small things. He had come into her life just when it was wearying of triumph and adulation; when lovely frocks and jewels, and hosts of admirers—the very things she had craved for a few years earlier—had commenced to pall in the light of the little real satisfaction to be won from them. With some women perhaps they never palled. ”

“ Wetter should have his Embassy. More than this, I came no longer in trepidation, no longer fearing her ridicule even while I sought her love, no more oppressed with the sense that in truth she might be laughing while she seemed to encourage. There was the dawning of triumph in my heart, an assurance of victory, and the fierce delight in a determination come to at great cost and to be held, it may be, at greater still. In all these feelings, mighty always, [Pg 127] there were for me the freshness, the rush of youth, and the venturous joy of new experience. ”

“ The inhabitants surround her, and survey the stranger with admiration. The girls express their surprise at the beauty of her flowing ringlets. Her elegant form, her graceful manner, the brilliancy of her eyes, even though dejected, their superior intelligence and mild benignity, astonish and delight all beholders. ”

“ His heart was swept and garnished like the man's in the Parable, and almost unawares a woman opened the door and stepped in, bringing with her train seven virtues, as of modesty, innocence, faith, cheerfulness, youth, courage, and love—qualities no better nor no fairer than herself. ”

“ Even questionable prima donnas, in virtue of their sweet voices, have their praises hymned in drawing-room and newspaper, and applause rolls over them, and gold and bouquets shower on them from lips and hands which, except for those said voices, would treat them to a ruder reward. In real fact, we take our places in this world not according to what we are not, but according to what we are. ”

“ While the woman whose mirror shows her, perhaps only clear eyes and general wholesomeness, knows that keenest triumph, "It's I whom he cares for—I, my very self for here is no rare beauty of feature or colouring to attract his eye!" ”

“ While these visitors, hearing that she is a young lady of family, and meeting her upon terms of equality, find, at once, that she is endowed with talents and accomplishments for the highest admiration, and with a sweetness of manners, and powers of conversation, irresistibly fascinating. ”

“ You can never understand how proud I was to have such a distinguished person in my house—I, a woman of the people, the daughter of a sailor, the granddaughter of a watchman, known in the place as the Serena, as my mother and grandmother were before me—certainly I should have been prouder still if it had been some years ago—one's pride decreases with disillusions and troubles. ”

“ The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one:—’twas one of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where the spirit bows itself down,—the body does no more than tell it. I never gave a girl a crown in my life which gave me half the pleasure. ”

“ From the moment of their first meeting this man had done what no other man had done before—spoken to her and treated her as a grown woman, with a man's admiration in his fine blue eyes, with deference in word and chivalric grace in manner. ”

“ The little waves had called her, coming up closer and closer, and fascinating her, until, yielding to their allurements, she went in amongst them, and floated on them, or lay her length in the shallows, letting them ripple over her, and make merry about her, the gladdest girl alive, yet with the wrapt impassive face of a devotee whose ecstasy is apart from all that acts on mere flesh and makes expression. ”

“ To her outer circle she was a beauty and a wit, with an air of natural distinction, felt by all who approached her: to the inner, a woman of deep and strong feeling, of penetrating and intuitive intelligence, and of an eminently meditative and poetic nature. ”

“ Not a fear of rivalry crossed her mind, for although she had several young girls as guests, she had been careful to invite only those who were plain-looking enough to serve as a foil to her own beauty. ”

“ She was like a presence out of the last century, tall and still erect, dark-eyed and of striking features, and a firm look not modern, but as if her mind were still set upon an earlier and simpler scheme of life. ”

“ The meeting was appointed, and but few came. I felt much backwardness, and as though I could not pray, but a pressure upon me to arise and express myself by way of exhortation. After hesitating for some time whether I would take up the cross or no, I arose, and after expressing a few words, the Spirit came upon me with life, and a victory was gained over the power of darkness, and we could rejoice together in His love. ”

“ With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled—there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go. ”

“ The flirtations, the jiltings, the matches that were on or off, the rumoured duels, debts, and difficulties of every one we were acquainted with, were told with a most amusing smartness—all showing, young as she was, how thoroughly the wear and tear of fashionable life had invested her with the intricate knowledge of character, and the perfect acquaintance with all the intrigues and byplay of the world. ”

“ Why fascinate the tender powers of my soul by that winning mildness, and the favourable display of those complicated and superior attractions which she must have known were irresistible?—Why did she not spurn me from her confidence, and plainly tell me that my attentions were untimely and improper? ”

“ She watched her, not with the jealous gaze of an angry woman watching a dangerous rival, but with unclouded, unprejudiced senses, with close admiring attention, and the keen perception of a woman gifted with intuitive knowledge of the world, a cool temper, and unusual discretion. ”

“ She moved as if to draw him with her, and all her naked loveliness swam rose and gold before his eyes, long hair, brightening at the tendril-ends, caressing the slender curves of perfect feet, the smile of victory touching soft lips,—breathless beauty waiting its fruition, queen and slave of men, thinking its victory won, looking downward half amazed at its own perfection. ”

“ On a wintry morning, in a public conveyance a hatless and coatless young woman of unusual beauty, and a very self-conscious young man, sitting beside her, were not annoyed by more than a curious stare or two. ”

“ I walked slowly out across the fields. That same star, in which I had confided on a former occasion, was at its post. It looked placid and cheerful. It never got beaten by six games to love under the very eyes of a lady-star. ”

“ I felt she must see at this juncture how wonderful I found her, and even that that impression—one's whole consciousness of her personal victory—was a force that, in the last resort, was all on her side. "It was quite worth your while, this sitting up to this hour, to show a fellow how you bloom when other women are fagged. ”

“ We had not seen her for some years—except for a few brief moments—and rejoiced to find her in nothing changed; her voice as light and happy, her laughter as full of gentle mirth, her eyes as bright and truthful, and her countenance as expressive of goodness and loving-kindness, as they have ever been. ”

“ For him to have so thoroughly understood the feminine mind and temperament, to have given to this subtle chameleon its various hues, to have portrayed woman with her many charms and caprices, and to have described woman in her various classes and at all ages, he must have observed her, or rather, he must have known her. ”

“ In a group of women you would pick her out to be a doctor, a lawyer, an intellectuelle. When I talked with her, impression followed impression—always I felt her intelligence, the play of her intellect upon the surfaces of her art, but always, too, I felt how narrow a chance had cast her lot upon the stage, how she easily might have been something else than a singing actress, how magnificently accidental her career was! ”

“ The actress evinced comprehension of the character in every fibre of its being, and she embodied it with the affluent vitality of splendid health and buoyant temperament—presenting a creature radiant with goodness and happiness, exquisite in natural refinement, piquant with archness, soft, innocent, and tender in confiding artlessness, and, while gleeful and triumphant in beautiful youth, gently touched with an intuitive pitying sense of the thorny aspects of this troubled world. ”

“ What would become of us in sickness, ladies, deprived of your attendance?—what would become of yourselves, if it did not come natural to you all from the finest lady downward, termagant and gentle alike, to smooth pillows, decant medicine, and perform numberless offices in no respect agreeable, but with the most exquisite gentleness and devotion. ”

“ I recall the excitement of girls of my age, their feeling that they had got to the top of everything, the first time they took this sacramental walk, if not with a man which was the crowning glory, at least with a woman who was prominent, or successful, in society. ”

“ But a happy chance has recently revealed the soothing secret that, from behind the jealous screen which conceals your celestial charms from the eyes of men, you sometimes deign to look with pity on me as I pass;—that, directed by the divinity who guards you, and the destiny of your star,—oh, happy star for me!—you even think of me with kindness. ”

“ And ladies too, all the pretty girls delight to be spoken to by the master! He needs no introduction, but is free to sip all the sweets that come. Who will not kiss the toe of his boots, or refuse to be blessed by the sunshine of his smile? ”

“ Above all, she loved to charm those with whom she associated—loved it in a half-unconscious way. Were it to a poor blind beggar woman, or a little crossing sweeper, she would speak as gently and modulate her voice as carefully as to the most brilliant partner or the greatest lady. ”

“ They all came to her court, as is the business of young fellows, to tell her what love is, and she listened with a noble frankness, having, indeed, the friendliest face for all engaged in this pursuit that can ever have sat on woman. ”

“ Sometimes, a face she had seen in the street, or a character she encountered in a book attracted her, when she would think of her hero, allowing her mind to place him in tender situations with herself, for the few hours her infatuation lasted, showing her to be of an impressionable and romantic disposition. ”

“ Gentleness and confidence were certainly the right thing, as from a charming woman to her husband, but the fine tissue of reassurance woven by this lady’s hands and flung over her companion as a light, muffling veil, formed precisely a wrought transparency through which she felt her father’s eyes continually rest on herself. ”