To not a few it seemed strange that, with her unquestioned powers
of fascination, she had not yet married; but London is not the
only place in which poverty is as repellent as beauty is
attractive. At the same time it must be confessed there was
something about her which made not a few men shy of her. Some
found that, if her eyes drew them within a certain distance,
there they began to repel them, they could not tell why. Others
felt strangely uncomfortable in her presence from the first. Not
only much that a person has done, but much of what a person is
capable of, is, I suspect, written on the bodily presence; and,
although no human eye is capable of reading more than here and
there a scattered hint of the twilight of history, which is the
aurora of prophecy, the soul may yet shudder with an instinctive
foreboding it can not explain, and feel the presence, without
recognizing the nature, of the hostile.
Sepia's eyes were her great power. She knew the laws of mortar-
practice in that kind as well as any officer of engineers those
of projectiles. There was something about her engines which it
were vain to attempt to describe. Their lightest glance was a
thing not to be trifled with, and their gaze a thing hardly to be
withstood. Sustained and without hurt defied, it could hardly be
by man of woman born. They were large, but no fool would be taken
with mere size.
Pages:
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373