t which
I cannot look at in the light of day without a feeling of wronging a
sacred confidence?

To all this the answer seemed plain enough after a little thought.
She did not know how fearfully she had disclosed herself; she was too
profoundly innocent. Her soul was no more ashamed than the fair shapes
that walked in Eden without a thought of over-liberal loveliness. Having
nobody to tell her story to,--having, as she said in her verses, no
musical instrument to laugh and cry with her,--nothing, in short, but
the language of pen and pencil,--all the veinings of her nature were
impressed on these pages as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the
blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember
seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had
one day at our boarding-house. The child was a deaf mute. But its soul
had the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity
which through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had
to talk with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid
alternations of feeling and shifting expressions of thought as flitted
over its face, I have never seen in any other human countenance.

I wonder if something of spiritual transparency is not typified in
the golden-blonde organization. There are a great many little
creatures,--many small fishes, for instance,--which are literally
transparent, with the exception of some of the internal organs. The
heart can be seen beating as if in a case of clouded crystal. The
central nervous column with its sheath runs as a dark stripe through
the whole length of the diaphanous muscles of the body. Other little
creatures are so darkened with pigment that we can see only their
surface. Conspirators and poisoners are painted with black, beady-eyes
and swarthy hue; Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them all.

However this may be, I should say there never had been a book like this
of Iris,--so full of the heart's silent language, so transparent that
the heart itself could be seen beating through it. I should say there
never could have been such a book, but for one recollection, which is
not peculiar to myself, but is shared by a certain number of my former
townsmen. If you think I over-color this matter of the young girl's
book, hear this, which there are others, as I just said, besides myself,
will tell you is strictly true.

X

THE BOOK OF THE THREE MAIDEN SISTE