Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936 -- Correspondence; Voyages and travels
Which reminds me that the other day I saw the Lady herself in the shape
of a tall woman of twenty-five or six, waiting for her tram on a street
corner. She wore her almost flaxen-gold hair waved, and parted low on
the forehead, beneath a black astrachan toque, with a red enamel
maple-leaf hatpin in one side of it. This was the one touch of colour
except the flicker of a buckle on the shoe. The dark, tailor-made dress
had no trinkets or attachments, but fitted perfectly. She stood for
perhaps a minute without any movement, both hands--right bare, left
gloved--hanging naturally at her sides, the very fingers still, the
weight of the superb body carried evenly on both feet, and the profile,
which was that of Gudrun or Aslauga, thrown out against a dark stone
column. What struck me most, next to the grave, tranquil eyes, was her
slow, unhurried breathing in the hurry about her. She was evidently a
regular fare, for when her tram stopped she smiled at the lucky
conductor; and the last I saw of her was a flash of the sun on the red
maple-leaf, the full face still lighted by that smile, and her hair very
pale gold against the dead black fur. But the power of the mouth, the
wisdom of the brow, the human comprehension of the eyes, and the
outstriking vitality of the creature remained. That is how _I_ would
have my country drawn, were I a Canadian--and hung in Ottawa Parliament
House, for the discouragement of prevaricators.
CITIES AND SPACES
What would you do with a magic carpet if one were lent you? I ask
because for a month we had a private car of our very own--a trifling
affair less than seventy foot long and thirty ton weight. 'You may find
her useful,' said the donor casually, 'to knock about the country. Hitch
on to any train you choose and stop off where you choose.'
So she bore us over the C.P.R. from the Atlantic to the Pacific and
back, and when we had no more need of her, vanished like the mango tree
after the trick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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