of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at intervalsin moments of intense excitementthat this
peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was her beautyin my
heated fancy thus it appeared, perhapsthe beauty of beings either above or apart from the earththe
beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black, and, far
over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint.
The strangeness, however, which I found in the eyes, was of a nature distinct from the formation, or
the colour, or the brilliancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to the expression. Ah, word
of no meaning! behind whose vast latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so much of the
spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeiahow for long hours have I pondered upon it! How have
I, through the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was itthat something more
profound than the well of Democrituswhich lay far within the pupils of my beloved? what was it? I
was possessed with a passion to discover. Those eyes, those large, those shining, those divine orbs?
they became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of astrologers.
There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the science of mind, more thrillingly
exciting than the factnever, I believe, noticed in the schoolsthat in our endeavours to recall to memory
something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being
able, in the end, to remember. And thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeias eyes, have
I felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression felt it approachingyet not quite be mineand
so at length entirely depart! And (strangeoh, strangest mystery of all!) I found in the commonest
objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I mean to say that, subsequently to the
period when Ligeias beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many
existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always around, within me, by her large and
luminous orbs. Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyse, or even steadily view it. I
recognised it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey of a rapidly growing vinein the contemplation
of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have felt it in the ocean; in the falling of a
meteor. I have felt it in the glances of unusually aged people. And there are one or two stars in heaven
(one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude, double and changeable, to be found near the large star
in Lyra), in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the feeling. I have been filled with
it by certain sounds from stringed instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from books. Among
innumerable other instances, I well remember something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps
merely from its quaintnesswho shall say?) never failed to inspire me with the sentiment: And the will
therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigour? For God is but a
great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto
death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.
Length of years and subsequent reflection have enabled me to trace, indeed, some remote connection
between this passage in the English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An intensity in
thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition
which, during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its existence.
Of all the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was the
most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no
estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled meby
the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness, and placidity of her very low voiceand by the
fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words
which she habitually uttered.
I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immensesuch as I have never known in woman. In the
classical tongues was she deeply proficient, and, as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard
to the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed upon any theme of the most
admired, because simply the most abstruse of the boasted erudition of the academy, have I ever found
Ligeia at fault? How singularlyhow thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife has forced itself,
at this late period only, upon my attention! I said her knowledge was such as I have never known in
womanbut where breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas of moral, |