And well I knew _she_ was beautiful.

I saw its unfailing index in those oval developments--the index, too, of the intellectual; for experience had taught me that _intellect takes a shape_; and that those peculiarities of form that we admire, without knowing why, are but the material illustrations of the diviner principles of mind.
The eye, too, with its almond outline, and wild, half-Indian, half Arab expression--the dark tracery over the lip, so rarely seen in the lineaments of her sex--even these were attractions.

There was something picturesque, something strange, something almost fierce, in her aspect; and yet it was this indefinable something, this very fierceness, that had challenged my love.

For I must confess mine is not one of those curious natures that I have read of, whose love is based only upon the goodness of the object.

That _is not love_.
My heart recognised in her _the heroine of extremes_.