good measure, shaken together, out of your abundance: paint me the
portrait of her soul, that I may be no more her half-admirer.

_Poly_. This will be no light task, my friend. It is one thing
to commend what all the world can see, and quite another to reveal
what is hidden. I too shall want help with my portrait. Nor will
sculptors and painters suffice me: I must have philosophers; it is
by their canons that I must adjust the proportions of the figure,
if I am to attain to the perfection of ancient models.

To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said,
with far more truth than of aged Nestor's, that

honey from those lips distilled.

The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as
from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice
breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still
vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and
Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy,
to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans
and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers;
Philomela's self, 'full-throated songstress' though she be, is all
unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus and Amphion, whose spell
drew even lifeless things to hear them, would have dropped their
lyres and stood listening in silence to that voice. What should
Thracian Orpheus, what should Amphion, whose days upon Cithaeron
were divided betwixt his lyre and his herd,--what should they know
of true concord, of accurate rhythm, of accentuation and time, of
the harmonious adaptation of lyre and voice, of easy and graceful