Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change -- only to give stability to one beautiful moment.
Source: Daniel Deronda, bk. 2, ch. 11, 1876.
-- George Eliot, (Nov 22 1819-1880), English novelist; Mary Ann Evans was the foremost woman novelist of her time, e.g., Silas Marner, 1861.