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  • The smile that illumines the features of beauty,
    When kindled by virtue, alluring appears;
    But smiles, tho' alluring, no magic can borrow,
    To vie with the softness of beauty in tears.
    The smiles that are sweetest are often deceiving;
    Too often a mask which the cold-hearted wears;
    But a tear is the holiest offspring of feeling,
    And monarchs are weak before beauty in tears.

    Henry George Bohn (1867). “A Dictionary of Quotations from the English Poets”, p.623
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