Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 2).djvu/98

 any thing that ever was called lovely, either in England or Germany, were capable of exciting the least admiration near her. There is truth in the old saying, that beauty possesses a power which irresistibly subdues the soul. No one ever looked for the first time upon a beautiful form without experiencing a certain awe, or consciousness of being in the presence of a superior nature, which the pagans imagined people felt when some deity overawed them with its shekinah. That an acquaintance with the intellectual or moral imperfections which too frequently attend on beauty very quickly dissipates this impression, we all know: but at the outset most persons feel like our traveller, who says, "I was so struck with admiration, that I could not for some time speak to her, being wholly taken up in gazing. That surprising harmony of features! that charming result of the whole! that exact proportion of body! that lovely bloom of complexion unsullied by art! the unutterable enchantment of her smile!—But her eyes!—large and black, with the soft languishment of the blue! every turn of her face discovering some new grace."

Into the details of her dress, in the description of which Lady Mary employs warm colouring, it is not necessary to enter. Fatima, on her part, very quickly divined the taste and temperament of her guest, and after a little conversation, carried on through the medium of a Greek lady who accompanied the traveller, she made a sign to four of her beautiful slaves to entertain the stranger with music and dancing. Those who have read descriptions of the fandango of the Spanish ladies, the chironomia of antiquity, or the performances of the Hindoo dancing-girls, or voluptuous almi of Egypt, will perhaps be able to form a just conception of the dance with which the ladies of the harem amuse themselves and their female visiters. "This dance," says Lady Montague, "was very different from what