George Eliot

Daniel Deronda George Eliot

Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or expression which gave thedynamic quality to her glance? Was the good or the evil genius dominant in those beams? Probablythe evil; else why was the effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? Why was the wishto look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which the whole being consents?She who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda's mind was occupied in gambling: not in theopen air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on a ruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but inone of those splendid resorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same species ofpleasure at a heavy cost of gilt mouldings, dark-toned color and chubby nudities, all correspondinglyheavy-forming a suitable condenser for human breath belonging, in great part, to the highestfashion, and not easily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere in the like proportion, at least bypersons of little fashion.