Page:Far from the Madding Crowd Vol 1.djvu/41

 existence could not be questioned; and this rather saucy assumption failed in being offensive, because. a beholder felt it to be, upon the whole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition to recognized power. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel's face rising like the moon behind the hedge.

The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions of her charms to the portrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminution than a difference. The starting-point selected by the judgment was her height. She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminu- tive; hence, making allowance for error by com- parison with these, she could have been not above the height to be chosen by women as best. All features of consequence were severe and regular. It may have been observed by persons who go about the shires with eyes for beauty, that in Englishwomen a classically formed face is seldom found to be united with a figure of the same pattern, the highly-finished features being gene- rally too large for the remainder of the frame; that a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads usually goes off into random facial curves. With- out throwing a Nymphean tissue over a milkmaid, let it be said that here criticism checked itself