eBooks Base 2000

I think she might
safely be left to the reverence her womanhood would win, without any
other protection. She is very beautiful, very satisfactory; and has a
fresh and new charm about her unreached by any cast or copy. The line of
the marble is just so much mellowed by time, as to do for her all that
Gibson tries, or ought to try to do for his statues by color, softening
her, warming her almost imperceptibly, making her an inmate of the heart,
as well as a spiritual existence. I felt a kind of tenderness for her;
an affection, not as if she were one woman, but all womanhood in one.
Her modest attitude, which, before I saw her I had not liked, deeming
that it might be an artificial shame, is partly what unmakes her as the
heathen goddess, and softens her into woman. There is a slight degree of
alarm, too, in her face; not that she really thinks anybody is looking at
her, yet the idea has flitted through her mind, and startled her a
little. Her face is so beautiful and intellectual, that it is not
dazzled out of sight by her form.


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