dually drew nearer
until at the last I was standing at her side, gazing down with the
utmost delight into that face which so greatly surpassed in loveliness
all human faces I had ever seen or imagined.

And yet to you, my friend, it probably will not seem that she was
so beautiful, since I have, alas! only the words we all use to paint
commoner, coarser things, and no means to represent all the exquisite
details, all the delicate lights, and shades, and swift changes of
colour and expression. Moreover, is it not a fact that the strange or
unheard of can never appear beautiful in a mere description, because
that which is most novel in it attracts too much attention and is given
undue prominence in the picture, and we miss that which would have taken
away the effect of strangeness--the perfect balance of the parts and
harmony of the whole? For instance, the blue eyes of the northerner
would, when first described to the black-eyed inhabitants of warm
regions, seem unbeautiful and a monstrosity, because they would vividly
see with the mental vision that unheard-of blueness, but not in the
same vivid way the accompanying flesh and hair tints with which it
harmonizes.

Think, then, less of the picture as I have to paint it in words than of
the feeling its original inspired in me when, looking closely for the
first time on that rare loveliness, trembling with delight, I mentally
cried: "Oh, why has Nature, maker of so many types and of innumerable
individuals of each, given to the world but one being like this?"

Scarcely had the thought formed itself in my mind before I dismissed it
as utterly incredible. No, this exquisite being was without doubt one
of a distinct race which had existed in this little-known corner of the
continent for thousands of generations, albeit now perhaps reduced to a
small and dwindling remnant.

Her figure and features were singularly delicate, but it was her colour
that struck me most, which indeed made her differ from all other human
beings. The colour of the skin would be almost impossible to describe,
so greatly did it vary with every change of mood--and the moods were
many and transient--and with the angle on which the sunlight touched it,
and the degree of light.

Beneath the trees, at a distance, it had seemed a somewhat dim white
or pale grey; near in the strong sunshine it was not white, but
alabastrian, semi-pellucid, showing an underlying rose colour; and
at any point where the rays