(regarded as to her temperament and quality)
to belong where she was: therefore she was
a delightful incident there. Had she been
met with in the days of the Old Testament,
or in the depths of Persia or India at the
present time, even, she might have appeared
commonplace. But here she was in conventional
costume, with conventional manners.
And, just as the nautch-girls, and other
Oriental dancers and posturers, wear a costume
which suggests nature more effectively
than does nature itself, so did Grace's
conventionality suggest to Freeman the essential
absence of conventionality more forcibly
than if he had seen her clad in a turban and
translucent caftan, dancing off John the
Baptist's head, or driving a nail into that of
Sisera. Grace certainly owed much of her
importance to her situation, which rendered
her foreign and piquante. But, then,
everything, in this world, is relative.

Racial types seem to be a failure: when they
become very marked, the race deteriorates
or vanishes. In the counties of England,
after only a thousand years, the women you
meet in the rural districts and country towns
all look like sisters. The Asiatics, of course,
are much more sunk in type than the Anglo-
Saxons; and they show us the way we would