oned of
crystal, and in the other the golden rod of royalty. Her breast was
bare, but under it was a garment that glistened like the scaly covering
of a snake, everywhere sewn with gems. Beneath this robe was a skirt
of golden cloth, half hidden by a scarf of the broidered silk of Cos,
falling in folds to the sandals that, fastened with great pearls,
adorned her white and tiny feet.

All this I discerned at a glance, as it were. Then I looked upon the
face--that face which seduced Caesar, ruined Egypt, and was doomed to
give Octavian the sceptre of the world. I looked upon the flawless
Grecian features, the rounded chin, the full, rich lips, the chiselled
nostrils, and the ears fashioned like delicate shells. I saw the
forehead, low, broad, and lovely, the crisped, dark hair falling in
heavy waves that sparkled in the sun, the arched eyebrows, and the long,
bent lashes. There before me was the grandeur of her Imperial shape.
There burnt the wonderful eyes, hued like the Cyprian violet--eyes that
seemed to sleep and brood on secret things as night broods upon the
desert, and yet as the night to shift, change, and be illumined by
gleams of sudden splendour born within their starry depths. All those
wonders I saw, though I have small skill in telling them. But even
then I knew that it was not in these charms alone that the might of
Cleopatra's beauty lay. It was rather in a glory and a radiance cast
through the fleshly covering from the fierce soul within. For she was a
Thing of Flame like unto which no woman has ever been or ever will be.
Even when she brooded, the fire of her quick heart shone through her.
But when she woke, and the lightning leapt suddenly from her eyes, and
the passion-laden music of her speech chimed upon her lips, ah! then,
who can tell how Cleopatra seemed? For in her met all the splendours
that have been given to woman for her glory, and all the genius which
man has won from heaven. And with them dwelt every evil of that greater
sort, which fearing nothing, and making a mock of laws, has taken
empires for its place of play, and, smiling, watered the growth of
its desires with the rich blood of men. In her breast they gathered,
together fashioning that Cleopatra whom no man may draw, and yet whom
no man, having seen, ever can forget. They fashioned her grand as the
Spirit of Storm, lovely as Lightning, cruel as Pestilence, yet with a
heart; and what she did is known. Woe to the world when such anoth