Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 | Page 6

so becoming; and then,
you see, this amber! Now what is in finer unison, this old point-lace, all
tags and tangle and fibrous and bewildering, and this amber, to which
Heaven knows how many centuries, maybe, with all their changes,
brought perpetual particles of increase? I like yellow things, you see.
To begin at the beginning. My name, you're aware, is Giorgione
Willoughby. Queer name for a girl! Yes; but before papa sowed his
wild oats, he was one afternoon in Fiesole, looking over Florence
nestled below, when some whim took him to go into a church there, a
quiet place, full of twilight and one great picture, nobody within but a
girl and her little slave,--the one watching her mistress, the other saying
dreadfully devout prayers on an amber rosary, and of course she didn't
see him, or didn't appear to. After he got there, he wondered what on
earth he came for, it was so dark and poky, and he began to feel
uncomfortably,--when all of a sudden a great ray of sunset dashed
through the window, and drowned the place in the splendor of the
illumined painting. Papa adores rich colors; and he might have been
satiated here, except that such things make you want more. It was a
Venus;--no, though, it couldn't have been a Venus in a church, could it?
Well, then, a Magdalen, I guess, or a Madonna, or something. I fancy
the man painted for himself, and christened for others. So, when I was
born, some years afterward, papa, gratefully remembering this dazzling
little vignette of his youth, was absurd enough to christen me Giorgione.
That's how I came by my identity; but the folks all call me Yone,--a

baby name.
I'm a blonde, you know,--none of your silver-washed things. I wouldn't
give a fico for a girl with flaxen hair; she might as well be a wax doll,
and have her eyes moved by a wire; besides, they've no souls. I imagine
they were remnants at our creation, and somehow scrambled together,
and managed to get up a little life among themselves; but it's good for
nothing, and everybody sees through the pretence. They're glass chips,
and brittle shavings, slender pinkish scrids,--no name for them; but just
you say blonde, soft and slow and rolling,--it brings up a brilliant,
golden vitality, all manner of white and torrid magnificences, and you
see me! I've watched little bugs--gold rose-chafers--lie steeping in the
sun, till every atom of them must have been searched with the warm
radiance, and have felt, that, when they reached that point, I was just
like them, golden all through,--not dyed, but created. Sunbeams like to
follow me, I think. Now, when I stand in one before this glass,
infiltrated with the rich tinge, don't I look like the spirit of it just
stepped out for inspection? I seem to myself like the complete
incarnation of light, full, bounteous, overflowing, and I wonder at and
adore anything so beautiful; and the reflection grows finer and deeper
while I gaze, till I dare not do so any longer. So, without more words,
I'm a golden blonde. You see me now: not too tall,--five feet four; not
slight, or I couldn't have such perfect roundings, such flexible moulding.
Here's nothing of the spiny Diana and Pallas, but Clytie or Isis speaks
in such delicious curves. It don't look like flesh and blood, does it? Can
you possibly imagine it will ever change? Oh!
Now see the face,--not small, either; lips with no particular outline, but
melting, and seeming as if they would stain yours, should you touch
them. No matter about the rest, except the eyes. Do you meet such eyes
often? You wouldn't open yours so, if you did. Note their color now,
before the ray goes. Yellow hazel? Not a bit of it! Some folks say topaz,
but they're fools. Nor sherry. There's a dark sardine base, but over it
real seas of light, clear light; there isn't any positive color; and once
when I was angry, I caught a glimpse of them in a mirror, and they
were quite white, perfectly colorless, only luminous. I looked like a
fiend, and, you may be sure, recovered my temper directly,--easiest
thing in the world, when you've motive enough. You see the pupil is
small, and that gives more expansion and force to the irides; but

sometimes in an evening, when I'm too gay, and a true damask settles
in the cheek, the pupil grows larger and crowds out the light, and under
these thick, brown lashes, these yellow-hazel eyes of yours, they are
dusky and purple and deep with flashes, like pansies lit by fire-flies,
and then common folks call them black. Be sure, I've never got such
eyes for nothing, any more than