The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 7, March, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 7, March, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
It would be impossible, of course, to make a full and fair record of a
conversation of some hours. I have only noted one or two topics which
I thought most likely to interest an American reader. During all this
long visit, however, my eyes were very busy in finishing for memory a
portrait of the celebrated and beautiful woman before me.
The portrait of lady Blessington in the Book of Beauties is not unlike
her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas
Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen,
which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just
matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature with
whose divine sweetness the gazer's heart aches, as ever was drawn in
the painter's most inspired hour. The original is now (she confessed
it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny side of
thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of an
admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper, for which
a Cinderella might long be looked for in vain, and her complexion, (an
unusually fair skin, with very dark hair and eyebrows,) is of even a
girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin, (if I am
describing her like a milliner, it is because I have here and there a
reader of the mirror in my eye who will be amused by it,) was cut low
and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the round
and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite
shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head, and parted simply
on her forehead with a rich _ferronier_ of turquoise, enveloped in
clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a
fault.--Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive
of them, has a ripe fulness and freedom of play, peculiar to the Irish
physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good humour. Add
to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and
manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable
for their winning kindness, and you have the prominent traits of one
of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen. Remembering
her talents and her rank, and the unenvying admiration she receives
from the world of fashion and genius, it would be difficult to
reconcile her lot to the "doctrine of compensation."
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