But Astarte rose upon him commanding and
complete, a star whose gradual formation he had not watched, and whose
unexpected brilliancy might therefore be more striking even than
the superior splendour which he had habitually contemplated. Young,
beautiful, queenly, impassioned, and eloquent, surrounded by the
accessories that influence the imagination, and invested with
fascinating mystery, Fakredeen, silent and enchanted, had yielded his
spirit to Astarte, even before she revealed to his unaccustomed and
astonished mind the godlike forms of her antique theogony. Eva and
Tancred had talked to him of gods; Astarte had shown them to him. All
visible images of their boasted divinities of Sinai and of Calvary with
which he was acquainted were enshrined over the altars of the convents
of Lebanon. He contrasted those representations without beauty or grace,
so mean, and mournful, and spiritless, or if endued with attributes of
power, more menacing than majestic, and morose rather than sublime, with
those shapes of symmetry, those visages of immortal beauty, serene
yet full of sentiment, on which he had gazed that morning with a holy
rapture. The Queen had said that, besides Mount Sinai and Mount
Calvary, there was also Mount Olympus.
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