Those who came to our market were of all qualities, men and women,
the lean and the stout, the plain and the fairly pretty. Sure, if
people at all understood the power of beauty, there would be no
prayers addressed except to Venus; and the mere privilege of
beholding a comely woman is worth paying for. Our visitors, upon
the whole, were not much to boast of; and yet, sitting in a corner
and very much ashamed of myself and my absurd appearance, I have
again and again tasted the finest, the rarest, and the most
ethereal pleasures in a glance of an eye that I should never see
again--and never wanted to. The flower of the hedgerow and the
star in heaven satisfy and delight us: how much more the look of
that exquisite being who was created to bear and rear, to madden
and rejoice, mankind!

There was one young lady in particular, about eighteen or nineteen,
tall, of a gallant carriage, and with a profusion of hair in which
the sun found threads of gold. As soon as she came in the
courtyard (and she was a rather frequent visitor) it seemed I was
aware of it. She had an air of angelic candour, yet of a high
spirit; she stepped like a Diana, every movement was noble and
free. One day there was a strong east wind; the banner was
straining at the flagstaff; below us the smoke of the city chimneys
blew hither and thither in a thousand crazy variations; and away
out on the Forth we could see the ships lying down to it and
scudding. I was thinking what a vile day it was, when she
appeared. Her hair blew in the wind with changes of colour; her
garments moulded her with the accuracy of sculpture; the ends of
her shawl fluttered about her ear and were caught in again with an
inimitable deftness. You have seen a pool on a gusty day, how it
suddenly sparkles and flashes like a thing alive? So this lady's