She had the prettiest little hands in the world, and little feet to match them. Sweetness and goodness reigned throughout her person; … her occupation was only to live her daily life; her accomplishments were the knowledge of a few songs; her intellectual gifts were summed up in her simple innocence.—Toilers of the Sea.
The coquette is blind: she does not see her wrinkles.—By Order of the King.
A mother's arms are made of tenderness, and children sleep soundly in them.—Les Misérables.
There are moments when a woman accepts, like a sombre and resigned duty, the worship of love.—Les Misérables.
She was pale with that paleness which is like the transparency of a divine life in an earthly face…. A soul standing in the dawn.—By Order of the King.
He looked at her, and saw nothing but her. This is love; one may be carried away for a moment by the importunity of some other idea, but the beloved one enters, and all that does not appertain to her presence immediately fades away, without her dreaming that perhaps she is effacing in us a world.—By Order of the King.
She walked on with a light and free step, so little suggestive of the burden of life that it might easily be seen that she was young. Her movements possessed that subtle grace which indicates the most delicate of all transitions—the soft intermingling, as it-were, of two twilights,—the passage from the condition of a child to that of womanhood.—Toilers of the Sea.
She had never been pretty, but her whole life, which had been but a succession of pious works, had eventually cast over her a species of whiteness and brightness, and in growing older she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth had became in her maturity transparency, and through this transparency the angel could be seen.—Les Misérables.
A ray of happiness was visible upon her face. Never had she appeared more beautiful. Her features were remarkable for prettiness rather than what is called beauty. Their fault, if fault it be, lay in a certain excess of grace…. The ideal virgin is the transfiguration of a face like this. Dèruchette, touched by her sorrow and love, seemed to have caught that higher and more holy expression. It was the difference between the field daisy and the lily.—Toilers of the Sea.
The glance of a woman resembles certain wheels which are apparently gentle but are formidable…. You come, you go, you dream, you speak, you laugh, and all in a minute you feel yourself caught, and it is all over with you. The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you.—Les Misérables.