l severity of form. The forehead is full, broad, and swelling
about the temples, illuminated by surfaces which catch the light, and
modelled like the brow of the hunting Diana, a powerful and determined
brow, silent and self-contained. The arch of the eye-brows, vigorously
drawn, surmounts a pair of eyes whose flame scintillates at times like
that of a fixed star. The white of the eye is neither bluish, nor strewn
with scarlet threads, nor is it purely white; it has the texture of
horn, but the tone is warm. The pupil is surrounded by an orange circle;
it is of bronze set in gold, but vivid gold and animated bronze. This
pupil has depth; it is not underlaid, as in certain eyes, by a species
of foil, which sends back the light and makes such eyes resemble those
of cats or tigers; it has not that terrible inflexibility which makes
a sensitive person shudder; but this depth has in it something of
the infinite, just as the external radiance of the eyes suggests the
absolute. The glance of an observer may be lost in that soul, which
gathers itself up and retires with as much rapidity as it gushed for a
second into those velvet eyes. In moments of passion the eyes of Camille
Maupin are sublime; the gold of her glance illuminates them and they
flame. But in repose they are dull; the torpor of meditation often lends
them an appearance of stupidity[*]; in like manner, when the glow of the
soul is absent the lines of the face are sad.

[*] George Sand says of herself, in "L'Histoire de Ma Vie,"
published long after the above was written: "The habit of
meditation gave me _l'air bete_ (a stupid air). I say the
word frankly, for all my life I have been told this, and
therefore it must be true."--TR.

The lashes of the eyelids are short, but thick and black as the tip of
an ermine's tail; the eyelids are brown and strewn with red fibrils,
which give them grace and strength,--two qualities which are seldom
united in a woman. The circle round the eyes shows not the slightest
blemish nor the smallest wrinkle. There, again, we find the granite
of an Egyptian statue softened by the ages. But the line of the
cheek-bones, though soft, is more pronounced than in other women and
completes the character of strength which the face expresses. The nose,
thin and straight, parts into two oblique nostrils, passionately dilated
at times, and showing the transparent pink of their delicate lining.
This nose is an admirab