clouds low
and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse;
so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there
was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged
mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with
foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched
with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering
distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast,
a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only
limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.

The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill,
with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above
spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky
was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I
could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments
below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark
and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm
or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like
moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from
which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.

The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky:
a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along
the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a
head,--a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against
it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew
up before the lower features a sable veil, a brow quite bloodless, white
as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the
glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above the temples, amidst
wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and
consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles
of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was "the likeness of a kingly
crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."

"Were you happy when you painted these pictures?" asked Mr. Rochester
presently.

"I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was
to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known."

"That is not saying much. Your pleasures,