Her own question gave her a shock.
“My logic never before hath denied me service. Thou mysterious, stately, haunting stranger! Why doth thine eyes shine upon me, and thy form possess my imagination? I bid thee adieu!”
But beyond her control something had taken shape and life, and stood before her, at the sight of which she was thrilled and spellbound. It was an Ideal—her Ideal.
“Away, airy phantom! I will be myself!”
But an ideal that fits its place takes possession. It persistently makes itself at home, and receives, not only deserved recognition, but a conscious or unconscious welcome.
She tried to step outside of herself and look in, in [pg 71]order to interpret, if possible, the vision from an impartial standpoint. Its charm was not lessened.
A mind may be deeply intuitive, and even philosophical, and yet naïve and artless. With a delightful and childlike simplicity, Amabel was unconscious of her own loveliness.
She threw aside the light scarf from her head; and her hair, somewhat disordered by the light breeze, played about the ivory neck which her light robe partially displayed. Her cheeks were flushed, and her large dark eyes unwontedly shining and liquid. Again she turned her gaze within. More truly, the new and mysterious Thing which had possessed her was there, rather than in the distance. Its correspondence or occasion might be without, but it was a subjective force which stirred the Hebrew maiden’s heart. There was a new, unfathomable, and heavenly quickening. Something had been awakened which no power on earth could turn back to its native slumbering latency.
The evening drew on, but she was unconscious of the flight of time. A charming and divine unrest, which she could not dislodge if she would, filled her soul. O daughter of humanity! who shall interpret thee to thyself?
She looked out upon the lamps that twinkled over the Holy City, but saw only the Ideal. The soft evening breeze that fanned her cheek whispered of it, and even the starry heavens smiled upon her and reflected it back.