Her
rapture of attention, during some passages, was enough of itself to
make you hold your breath; and a sudden stroke of genius lit her face
into a very heaven with its lightning. It seemed to me that in her I
should find one who would truly sympathize with me, one who looked on
the art not as a connoisseur, but a votary.
I took the speediest opportunity of being introduced to her at her own
house by a common friend.
But what a difference! At home I scarcely knew her. Still she was
beautiful; but the sweetness, the elevated expression, which the
satisfaction of an hour had given her, were entirely fled. Her eye was
restless, her cheek pale and thin, her whole expression perturbed and
sorrowful. Every gesture spoke the sickliness of a spirit long an
outcast from its natural home, bereft of happiness, and hopeless of
good.
I perceived, at first sight of her every-day face, that it was not
unknown to me. Three or four years earlier, staying in the
country-house of one of her friends, I had seen her picture. The house
was very dull,--as dull as placid content with the mere material
enjoyments of life, and an inert gentleness of nature, could make its
inhabitants.
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