A creature of faultless harmony and grace; but whose perfect repose of manner, attitude, look and language, exquisite as it is, almost frightens you away from her at first. So still, so fair, so pure—like a snow-cloud moving serenely through the silent air. There she sits; with her graceful Greek head bent slightly forward, its luxuriant, light brown hair wound carelessly and wavily around it; her chiseled features serenely beautiful, and her hands, white as Pentelican marble, resting half-clasped upon her knee. If I mistake not, beneath that snowy crest, there are flowers of fancy and fountains of feeling—all the lovelier and purer for being so guarded, by the vestal, from the world. Her cheek is almost always pale And marble cold it seems; But a soft color trembles there, At times, in rosy gleams! Some sudden throb of love, or grief, Or pity, or delight, And lo! a flush of beauty—brief, But passionately bright! She ’minds me of a rose I found, In a far, Southern land— A robe of ice its blushes bound, By winter breezes fanned. But softly through the crystal veil, That gleamed about its form, There came a fitful glow to tell The flower beneath was warm! Oh! that all women could thus proudly wear the veil! It is a protection we need so much—that mantle of snow! But there are those (and they most want it) in whose hearts the waves of feeling never rest long enough for the winter crust to form—who never stop to think, to look back, lo reflect, to prepare; but dash on to the ocean “over bank, brake and scaur,” giving back only half-formed or broken images of the beautiful visions that beam above their way—the bird—the cloud—the flower—the star—now humming a careless carol to the breeze, now murmuring a plaintive chant, now thundering in torrent tones, as they madly leap adown the rocks that would oppose them, and now dancing out of sight into the dim, untrodden forest-depths, where none will dare to follow. We have seen the statuesque—there were not wanting the “grotesque and arabesque,” as well to our literary _soirée_.