The Booming of Acre Hill And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life by Bangs, John Kendrick - III

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The Booming of Acre Hill And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life

III

A GLANCE AT MISS FLO­RA HEN­DER­SON HER­SELF

But what sort of a wom­an was Miss Flo­ra Hen­der­son, it may be asked, that she should de­mand so much in the man with whom she should share the bur­dens of life? Sure­ly one should be well­nigh per­fect one's self to re­quire so much of an­oth­er--and I re­al­ly think Miss Flo­ra Hen­der­son was so.

In the first place, she was tall and state­ly--Ju­noesque some peo­ple called her. She had an eye fit for all things. It was soft or hard, as one wished it. It was melt­ing or fixed, ac­cord­ing to the mood one would have her be­tray. She was nev­er flip­pant, and while the small things of life in­ter­est­ed her to an ex­tent, much more ab­sorbed was she in the great things which per­tain to ex­is­tence. Dance she could, and well, but she danced not to the ex­clu­sion of all oth­er things. With danc­ing peo­ple she was a dancer full of the po­et­ry of mo­tion, and en­joy­ing it open­ly and in­no­cent­ly. With a man of learn­ing, how­ev­er, she was equal­ly at home as with the cal­low youth. With na­ture in her ev­ery mood was she in sym­pa­thy. She was fond of po­et­ry and of mu­sic; in­deed, to sum up her char­ac­ter in as few words as pos­si­ble, she was ev­ery­thing that so crit­ical a dream­er of the ide­al as Mr. Au­gus­tus Richards could have wished for, nor was there one weak spot in the ar­mor of her char­ac­ter at which he could cav­il.

In short, Miss Flo­ra Hen­der­son, of Boston, was the ide­al of whom Mr. Au­gus­tus Richards, of New York, dreamed.