At Eleanor's
exclamation Gilbert also had raised his eyes from the ground, and they
fixed themselves on the wonderful features of the greatest man of the
age, while his voice forgot to chant and his lips remained parted in
wonder. Upon the bright green grass against the background of hewn
stone walls, in the glorious autumn sunshine, Bernard of Clairvaux
moved like the supernal vision of a heavenly dream. His head thrown
back, the delicate silver-fair beard scarcely shadowing the spiritual
outlines of an almost divine face, his soft blue eyes looked upward,
filled with a light not earthly. The transparent brow and the almost
emaciated cheeks were luminously pale, and seemed to shed a radiance of
their own.
But it would have been impossible to say what it was in the man's form
or face that made him so utterly different and distinct from other men.
It was not alone the Christlike brow, nor the noble features inherited
from a line of heroes; it was not the ascetic air, the look of bodily
suffering, nor the fine-drawn lines of pain which, as it were, etched a
shadowy background of sorrow upon which the spiritual supremacy blazed
like a rising star: it was something beyond all these, above name and
out of definition, the halo of saintship, the glory of genius, the
crown of heroism. Of such a man, one's eyes might be filled, and one
might say, 'Let him not speak, lest some harsh tone or imperfect speech
should pierce the vision with sharp discord, as a rude and sudden sound
ends a soft dream.
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