up in a fillet of silk, after the Italian fashion; and her eyes expressed a lively pleasure, which rendered her more seductive than ever.  Oswald was disturbed at this; he warred against himself; he was indignant at being captivated with charms which he ought to lament, since, far from thinking to please him, it was to escape his empire that Corinne appeared so attractive.—­But who could resist the seductions of a grace like hers?  Were she even disdainful, she would be still more omnipotent; and that certainly was not the disposition of Corinne.  She perceived Lord Nelville, and blushed, while there was in her eyes as she looked upon him, a most enchanting softness.

The Prince d’Amalfi accompanied himself, in dancing, with castanets.  Corinne before she began saluted the assembly most gracefully with both her hands, then turning round upon her heel took the tambourine which the Prince Amalfi presented her with.  She then began to dance, striking the air upon the tambourine, and there was in all her motions, an agility, a grace, a mixture of modesty and voluptuousness, which might give an idea of that power which the Bayadores exercise over the imagination of the Indians, when, if we may use the expression, they are almost poets in their dance; when they express so many different sentiments by the characteristic steps and the enchanting pictures which they offer to the sight.  Corinne was so well acquainted with all the attitudes which the ancient painters and sculptors have represented, that by a light movement of her arms, sometimes in placing the tambourine over her head, sometimes forward, with one of her hands, whilst the other ran over the little bells with an incredible dexterity, she recalled to mind the dancers of Herculaneam[20], and gave birth successively to a crowd of new ideas for painting and design.

It was not the French style, characterised by the elegance and difficulty of the step; it was a talent more connected with imagination and sentiment.  The character of the music was alternately expressed by the exactitude and softness of the movements.  Corinne, in dancing, conveyed to the souls of her spectators what was passing in her own.  The same as in her improvisation, her performance on the lyre, or the efforts of her pencil,—­she reduced everything to language.  The musicians, in beholding her, exerted themselves to make the genius of their art felt more exquisitely; a kind of passionate joy, a sensibility of the imagination, electrified all the spectators of the magic dance, and transported them to that state of ideal existence in which we dream of happiness that does not exist in this world.