THE BREATH BUILDING OF IMAGINATION, 113 



senses, and are boused in the inspirations ; that the depressing pas- 

 sions tend to lower or kill the breath; as extreme fear, for instance, 

 which makes us aghast or ghostless, and causes the lungs to forget 

 their reciprocations : and that the middle passions have a middle 

 effect. And it may further be noted that the peculiar respirations 

 which are the bodily spirits or tendencies of the several passions, 

 have the office of provoking the latter, or reacting upon them. For 

 example, in rage, does it not begin to fume and swell in the lungs ? 

 is not "the steam got up" in those locomotives; and does not the 

 brain, with tempests in his hand, not only lash the body into the 

 pace which answers to its own madness, but feed the madness out 

 of the wind-swift speed ? These passionate breaths, although not 

 classified by science, are known to the observing, and interpret the 

 underplay of the feelings, even when speech and smiles dissemble. 

 In this field then the lungs have several offices. By concurring with 

 the passions they raise the frame into each, or communicate it to the 

 blood and secretions, enabling the mind and body to keep company 

 through all changes, or to be impassioned together. By the same 

 concurrence they amplify the field, and stimulate the fire of the pas- 

 sions, fanning it with the oxygen of their spacious movements. They 

 also enlarge the material body to the scope of animal life, which is 

 passion, causing stomach and liver to flame and expand with it; as 

 we saw in the case of the senses, that they extend the enlarging 

 breath of sense through the lungs to the same material organs. The 

 lungs then lend the passions of the mind physical force, and the or- 

 gans of the body passionate movements ; and by this means they 

 make the one and the other, or the brain and the viscera, into per- 

 fect bodily animals. 



But the imagination also, which is the intellect of passion, builds 

 especial houses in the breath, or, as it is said, forms air castles. 

 These are its own expirations, in which it revels, for what it draws 

 in is nothing to it, but what it breaths out is all. It does not how- 

 ever expire either to do or to die, but to run after its breaths as they 

 sail through the air; not desiring to leave the world, but to propa- 

 gate its image children in the universal imagery. The smoke of its 

 lung-pipe keeps it busy with the plasma of a thousand twirls. It 

 makes its objects out of its breath, and hence we locate it among 



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