The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 134: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TUE MYSTERIFS OF THE Cul tv. ing beyond all power of description. Were Cleo- patra such a woman as Venetia Trelawney, it can be no matter of wonder if Mark Anthony could reconcile himself to the loas of the empire of the Roman world for a being so goddess-like as she. Poets may have dreamt of a loveliness without fault—romancists may have laboured to describe a beauty without imperfection—and artists may have transferred to canvass the glowing image of their enraptured conception of woman’s charms: but never did bard behold in the moat beatific of his visions—never did novelist conjure up in his hap- piest mood—and never did painter pourtray in the sublimest hours of his genius, a being more tran- scendently lovely than Venetia Trelawney. She was one of those women for whose sake the enthusiastic lover would not only dare every peril and encounter every horror that the circumstances 16 * whose favours a man might consent to plunge headlong into the abyss of crime. To be allowed to toy with those golden tresses—to pass the hand over that damask cheek—to press the lips to that rich red mouth—to pillow the head upon that heaving bosom—to be clasped in those warm and rounded arms—and to know that all these delights were but the prelude to those elysian joys that would not be refused,—Ah! this indeed were to experience the realization of paradise upon earth! But to resume our narrative in due course. Venetia Trelawney had not been many minutes alone in the Crimson Drawing-Room, when she suddenly observed that a door facing where she sate was partially open. She looked round, and at once became satisfied that it was not the door by which she had entered the room; and she was equally certain it was not standing thus half open . of life could possibly afford for such an ordeal ; | when she was first introduced into the apartment. but she was one to win whose smiles and gain | What, then, could it mean? Was there sume one — comliclbooks.com