TIIE MARRIAGE AURICLE. 209 



them can flame, because they have not met the air, which is the 

 public in contradistinction to the private. Public feelings are there- 

 fore the arterial blood of the heart, while private feelings are the 

 venous. A complete turn of objects exists between the two; the 

 right side of the blood becomes the left and weak side seen in the 

 airy mirror, and the left side becomes the right, and sits at the 

 right hand of power. Every public object proceeds from the pub- 

 lic to the individual — from the common air into the blood ; where- 

 as the private objects run from the individual to the public, or from 

 the blood towards the air. The meeting-point of these two efforts, 

 and of the feelings which run with them, is in the capillaries of the 

 lungs, where the air converts the one into the other, and where 

 consequently the man becomes, and feels himself, inspired. 



The lungs pour the blood into the left auricle, and the first mo- 

 ment of arterial life is spent here; the first feeling that blushes and 

 runs over from the redundant passion. The beginning of virility 

 is sexual knowledge ; the mirage of Eve at the fountain is a vision 

 of rosy flesh seen as her own, and yet felt as other than her own. 

 Love stands at the gate of the larger life, and revels in its flower. 

 The arterial lungs are the puberty of the blood, coming from the 

 dreams or imaginations, with whose hints and incentives the air is 

 full. The left auricle is the marriage-bed where the tension of this 

 bursting life is continually taken down, and renewed continually. 

 Accordingly this auricle or bed is the most hidden of the chambers, 

 decently curtained away by the rest, and least to be felt from the 

 outside. It supports, and is supported by, the family auricle, with 

 which it moves in step ; the synchronism of parts with different 

 functions showing the harmony of different ends, and their ultimate 

 working for each other. The first arterial life of man is then 

 sexual love, whose early stage, preceding conjunction, is incarnated 

 or ensanguined in the arterial circulation of the lungs, and its con- 

 summation is in the left auricle, which grasps at the paired and 

 mated blood, to realize sex and marriage as one of the four corner 

 stones on which all flesh is to be founded. The amorous feelings 

 therefore play upon the left auricle, where nature is always doing 

 their work. 



We have drawn a distinction between the private or venous, and 



18* 



