QUOTE : ...he was past youth, but had not reached<br />middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him,<br />and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking<br />young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning<br />him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had<br />hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one.<br />I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance,<br />gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in<br />masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither<br />had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have<br />shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is<br />bright but antipathetic.