"what a woman is this!" exclaimed miriam, after a long pause."tell me, did she ever try, even while you were creating her, to overcome you with her fury or her love? were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew more and more towards hot life beneath your hand? my dear friend, it is a great work!how have you learned to do it?""it is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emotion, and toil of brain and hand," said kenyon, not without a perception that his work was good; "but i know not how it came about at last.i kindled a great fire within my mind, and threw in the material,--as aaron threw the gold of the israelites into the furnace,--and in the midmost heat uprose cleopatra, as you see her.""what i most marvel at," said miriam, "is the womanhood that you have so thoroughly mixed up with all those seemingly discordant elements.where did you get that secret? you never found it in your gentle hilda, yet i recognize its truth.""no, surely, it was not in hilda," said kenyon."her womanhood is of the ethereal type, and incompatible with any shadow of darkness or evil.""you are right," rejoined miriam; "there are women of that etherealtype, as you term it, and hilda is one of them.she would die of her first wrong-doing,--supposing for a moment that she could be capable of doing wrong.of sorrow, slender as she seems, hilda might bear a great burden; of sin, not a feather's weight.methinks now, were it my doom, i could bear either, or both at once; but my conscience is still as white as hilda's.do you question it?""heaven forbid, miriam!"exclaimed the sculptor.
he was startled at the strange turn which she had so suddenly given to the conversation.her voice, too,--so much emotion was stifled rather than expressed in it, sounded unnatrural.