[*] 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 admirable continuation of the forehead, with
which it blends in a most delicious line. It is perfectly white from
its spring to its tip, and the tip is endowed with a sort of mobility
which does marvels if Camille is indignant, or angry, or rebellious.
There, above all, as Talma once remarked, is seen depicted the anger
or the irony of great minds. The immobility of the human nostril
indicates a certain narrowness of soul; never did the nose of a miser
oscillate; it contracts like the lips; he locks up his face as he does
his money.

Camille's mouth, arching at the corners, is of a vivid red; blood
abounds there, and supplies the living, thinking oxide which gives
such seduction to the lips, reassuring the lover whom the gravity of
that majestic face may have dismayed. The upper lip is thin, the