Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare01fullrich).pdf/35

Rh thoughts, it was arrested by a face most fair, and well-known as it seemed at first glance,— for surely I had met her before and waited for her long. But soon I saw that she was a new apparition foreign to that scene, if not to me. Her dress,— the arrangement of her hair, which had the graceful pliancy of races highly cultivated for long,— the intelligent and full picture of her eye, whose reserve was in its self-possession, not in timidity,— all combined to make up a whole impression, which, though too young to understand, I was well prepared to, feel.

‘How wearisome now appears that thorough-bred millefleur beauty, the distilled result of ages of European culture! Give me rather the wild heath on the lonely hill-side, than such a rose-tree from the daintily clipped garden. But, then, I had but tasted the cup, and knew not how little it could satisfy; more, more, was all my cry; continued through years, till I had been at the very fountain. Indeed, it was a ruby-red, a perfumed draught, and I need not abuse the wine because I prefer water, but merely say I have had enough of it. Then, the first sight, the first knowledge of such a person was intoxication.

‘She was an English lady, who, by a singular chance, was cast upon this region for a few months. Elegant and captivating, her every look and gesture was tuned to a different pitch from anything I had ever known. She was in various ways “accomplished,” as it is called, though to what degree I cannot now judge. She painted in oils; — I had never before seen any one use the brush, and days would not have been too long for me to watch the pictures growing beneath her hand.

She played the harp; and its tones are still to me the