quote · Legacy record
The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.
The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.
Approximate author period: c. 1856 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Wilkie Collins
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1856 AD · industrial
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1824 to 1889; Wikidata Q210740, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q210740 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 90334; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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