Excerpt from Chapter 13 in which Holgrave offers his description of Alice,
emphasizing her beauty and her pride
So Alice Pyncheon was summoned, and appeared. A portrait of this young
lady, painted by a Venetian artist, and left by her father in England,
is said to have fallen into the hands of the present Duke of Devonshire,
and to be now preserved at Chatsworth; not on account of any associations
with the original, but for its value as a picture, and the high character
of beauty in the countenance. If ever there was a lady born, and set apart
from the world's vulgar mass by a certain gentle and cold stateliness,
it was this very Alice Pyncheon. Yet there was the womanly mixture in her;
the tenderness, or, at least, the tender capabilities. For the sake of
that redeeming quality, a man of generous nature would have forgiven all
her pride, and have been content, almost, to lie down in her path, and
let Alice set her slender foot upon his heart. All that he would have required,
was simply the acknowledgment that he was indeed a man, and a fellow-being,
moulded of the same elements as she. (Chapter
13)
