I wonder if there is something
like an unawakened mind, sleeping under that broad low brow that
mocks one with its fair intellectual outline. I wonder if it
would be possible to set her thinking, and so eventually render
her capable of receiving a woman's soul. As it is now she seems
to possess only certain disagreeable feminine propensities. One
might engage in such an experiment as a philosopher rather than a
lover; or, what is more to my purpose, as an artist.
"By Jove! I would half like to make the attempt; it would give zest
to one's summer vacation. Well, what is to hinder? Now I think
of it she remarked that she was to spend the season at the Lake
House, not far from the Hudson, a place well suited to my purposes.
There are the wild highlands on one side, and a soft pastoral country
on the other. I could there find abundant opportunity for varied
studies in scenery, and at the same time beguile my idle hours at
the hotel with this face of marvellous capabilities and possibilities.
The features already exist, and would be beautiful if the girl were
dead, and they could be no longer distorted by the small vices of
the spirit back of them. They might become transcendently beautiful,
could she in very truth receive the soul of a true and thoughtful
woman--a soul such as makes my mother beautiful in her plain old
age.
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