The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

20 The Wreck of the South Pole. and shrubs, I saw in the distance a human being—a woman. She was standing still, out on the plain, which was now no longer a field of ice, and looking toward the north. - At first I stopped in amazement, and then quickening my pace, hurried on toward her. She remained motionless, as if awaiting my coming, and when | approached to within a few rods, so that her face could be distinguished, she smiled a welcome and lifted her hand, as if beckoning me to her. Let me pause here and describe this image, which, from that moment, became my ideal of womanhood and which since then has ever been enshrined in my heart. She was tall. Not the tallest woman in the world I had ever seen, but slightly above the common height. Her figure was compactly built, with hips slender as a boy’s and as graceful, and with the bust rounded out in the curves of budding womanhood. As to her face! It was long and oval, but not with a high brow. Her complexion clear pink and white, and her hair the softest of dark brown, fine spun and floating. And her eyes—not brown nor black nor blue, but of that clear gray which are the most beautiful God ever made. They are so beautiful that He entrusts them to but few, even of women. I loved her from the first moment her face appeared to me on that barren plain. As I drew nearer to her she smiled again and said in a sweet voice: GOMmicbooks:co