bright,
    Served too in hastier swell to show
    Short glimpses of a breast of snow;
    What though no rule of courtly grace
    To measured mood had train’d her pace,—­
    A foot more light, a step more true,
    Ne’er from the heath-flower dash’d the dew;
    E’en the slight hare-bell raised its head,
    Elastic from her airy tread;
    What though upon her speech there hung
    The accent of the mountain tongue,
    Those silver sounds, so soft, so clear,
    The list’ner held his breath to hear.

      Lady of the Lake, Canto 1.

Spoilt she was on all hands....  But though, from these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as wilful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indulgence seldom fails to render those to whom it is extended; and although she exhibited upon many occasions that affectation of extreme shyness, silence, and reserve, which misses are apt to take for an amiable modesty; and upon others, a considerable portion of that flippancy which youth sometimes confounds with wit, she had much real shrewdness and judgment, which wanted only opportunities of observation to refine it—­a lively, good-humoured, playful disposition, and an excellent heart.—­The Fortunes of Nigel.

     The buoyant vivacity with which she had resisted every touch of
     adversity, had now assumed the air of composed and submissive, but
     dauntless, resolution and constancy.—­Rob Roy.

Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties.  Her clear blue eye, which sat enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown, sufficiently marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as to melt, to command as well as to beseech.—­Ivanhoe.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

    She was a Phantom of delight
    When first she gleamed upon my sight;
    A lovely Apparition, sent
    To be a moment’s ornament;
    Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
    Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
    But all things else about her drawn
    From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
    A dancing Shape, and Image gay,
    To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

      A Phantom of Delight.

    A gentle maid, whose heart is lowly bred,
    With joyousness, and with a thoughtful cheer.

      A Farewell.

    A Spirit, yet a Woman too! 
    Her household motions light and free,
    And steps of virgin liberty;
    A countenance in which did meet
    Sweet records, promises as sweet;
    A Creature not too bright or good
    For human nature’s daily food;
    For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
    Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

      A Phantom of Delight.