Page:Notable Irishwomen.djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
120
NOTABLE IRISHWOMEN.

waved over it in a natural ripple, and was confined in shining and voluminous braids at the back of a neck, such as you see on the shoulders of the Louvre Venus (that delight of gods and men). Her eyes when she lifted them up to gaze on you, and e'er she dropped her purple deep-fringed lids, shone with mystery and tenderness unfathomable. She never laughed (indeed her teeth were not good) but a smile of endless tenderness and sweetness played round her beautiful lips and in the dimples of her cheeks and her lovely chin. Her nose defied description in those days. Her ears were like two little pearl shells, which the earrings she wore, though the handsomest properties in the theatre, only insulted. But it was her hand and arm that this magnificent creature most excelled in.… They surrounded her. When she folded them over her bosom in resignation, when she dropped them in mute agony, or raised them in superb command, when in sportive gaiety her hands waved and fluttered before her like—what shall we say?—like the snowy doves before the chariot of Venus, it was with these hands and arms that she beckoned, repelled, entreated, embraced her adorers, no single one, for she was armed with her own virtue and her father's valour."

This last sentence is indeed true of the fair actress, no stain ever rested on her character. How different from Peg Woffington and Mrs. Jordan!