"The men were used to say, that no woman had so many graces as Eliza:
the women said so too. They all praised her candour; they all extolled
her sensibility; they were all ambitious of the honour of her
acquaintance. The stings of envy were never pointed against
unconscious merit.
"Anjengo, it is to the influence of thy happy climate that she
certainly was indebted for that almost incompatible harmony of
voluptuousness and decency which diffused itself over all her person,
and accompanied all her motions. A statuary who would have wished to
represent Voluptuousness, would have taken her for his model; and she
would equally have served for him who might have had a figure of
Modesty to display. Even _the gloomy and clouded sky of England_ had
not been able to obscure the brightness of that aerial kind of soul,
unknown in our climates. In every thing that Eliza did, an
irresistible charm was diffused around her. Desire, but of _a timid
and bashful cast_, followed her steps in silence. Any man of
courteousness alone must have loved her, but would not have _dared_ to
own his passion.
"I search for Eliza every where; I discover, I discern, some of her
features, some of her charms, scattered among those women whose figure
is most interesting. But what is become of her who united them all?
Nature, who hast exhausted thy gifts to form an Eliza, didst thou
create her only for one moment? Didst thou make her to be admired for
one instant, and to be for ever regretted?
"All who have seen Eliza regret her.
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