Dr. Janet of Harley Street / a novel by Arabella Kenealy.

  • Arabella Kenealy
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Janet of Harley Street / a novel by Arabella Kenealy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    her years. Her slim and supple height showed scarcely a womanly curve as she leaned back in girlish abandon against the friendly statue. But in her deep eyes lay the gathering mystery of womanhood, in the full soft curving of her lips, in the delicate fine dilatation of her nostrils, and the sweet indecision of her white chin. Her eyes were grey and large ; clear and bright almost to colourlessness in moments of excitement, full and dark in moods of softness. But moments of emotion were not frequent with her. Nature was at present spending her forces in fabricating the woman-face, in amplifying and smoothing the curves of cheek, and chin, and lip in intensifying the tint of the eyes, in curling the soft fine hair in rings upon the neck and brow, and in putting in the many other dainty delicate last touches of developed womanhood. With a large number of women Nature finds, when all this expenditure has been lavished upon the exterior, that but little or nothing remains for inward graces ; her beautiful handiwork has the ap- pearance of woman in all her perfection, but the warm flesh tints correspond to no fire within, the soft modelling overlies no sensitiveness of heart. Pygmalion may cry in vain for love and pas- sionate life to vivify his beloved ; she will ever remain cold and incapable of emotion, though
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