"He will take strong hold of your poetic imagination. There is something 'grand, gloomy, and peculiar' about him; a mystery of reserve, which oft amounts to haughtiness. I am but very little acquainted with him, and probably never shall be. Should we chance to meet in society, we would be two parallel lines, never uniting, however near we might approach. Besides, he is a number of years older than myself."
"I suppose you call him old Mr. Linwood," said I, laughing.
We had now entered the gate, and met Mrs. Linwood and Edith walking in the avenue, if Edith could be said to walk, borne on as she was by her softly falling crutches. She looked so exceedingly lovely, I wondered that Richard did not burst forth in expressions of irrepressible admiration. I was never weary of gazing on her beauty. Even after an absence of a few hours, it dawned upon me with new lustre, like that of the rising day. I wondered that any one ever looked at any one else in her presence. As for myself, I felt annihilated by her dazzling fairness, as the little star is absorbed by the resplendent moon.
Strange, all beautiful as she was she did not attract, as one would suppose, the admiration of the other sex. Perhaps there was something cold and shadowy in the ethereality of her loveliness, a want of sympathy with man's more earthly, passionate nature. It is very certain, the beauty which woman most admires often falls coldly on the gaze of man. Edith had the face of an angel; but hers was not the darkening eye and changing cheek that "pale passion loves." Did the sons of God come down to earth, as they did in olden time, to woo the daughters of men, they might have sought her as their bride. She was not cold, however; she was not passionless. She had a woman's heart, formed to enshrine an idol of clay, believing it imperishable as its own love.
Mrs. Linwood gave Richard a cordial greeting. I had an unaccountable fear that she would not be pleased that he escorted me home so frequently, though this was the first time he had accompanied me to the lawn. She urged him to remain and pass the evening, or rather asked him, for he required no urging. I am sure it must have been a happy one to him. Edith played upon her harp, which had been newly strung. She seemed the very personification of one of Ossian's blue-eyed maids, with her white, rising hands, and long, floating locks.
I was passionately fond of music, and had my talent been early cultivated I would doubtless have excelled. I cared not much about the piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy, or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords, the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the divine string, and "called angels down."
When I retired that night and saw the reflection of myself full length, in the large pier-glass, between the rosy folds of the sweeping damask, I could not help recalling what Richard Clyde had said of my personal improvement. Was he sincere, when with apparent enthusiasm he had applied to me the epithet, beautiful? No, he could not be; and yet his eyes had emphasized the language of his lips.
I was not vain. Few young girls ever thought less of their personal appearance. I lived so much in the world within, that I gave but little heed to the fashion of my outward form. It seemed so poor an expression of the glowing heart, the heaven-born soul.
For the first time I looked upon myself with reference to the eyes of others, and I tried to imagine the youthful figure on which I gazed as belonging to another, and not myself. Were the outlines softened by the dark-flowing sable, classic and graceful? Was there beauty in the oval cheek, now wearing the warm bloom of the brunette, or the dark, long-lashed eye, which drooped with the burden of unuttered thoughts?
As I asked myself these questions, I smiled at my folly; and as the image smiled back upon the original, there was such a light, such a glow, such a living soul passed before me, that for one moment a triumphant consciousness swelled my bosom, a new revelation beamed on my understanding,—the consciousness of woman's hitherto unknown power,—the revelation of woman's destiny.