306 THE HUMAN FORM. 



phical angel. "A footless stocking without a leg," was the Irish- 

 man's definition of nothing : it is the metaphysicians' definition of 

 the soul. On the other hand, to common sense, every passion has 

 all our parts. If the painter delineates love, it is by a beaming coun- 

 tenance, by clasping hands, by open arms, by beating heart, by flush- 

 ing cheeks, by a bending and inclining form : or if the sculptor will 

 show you duty, its white marble is a cheerful severity of brow, hand 

 and frame, and a steadfastness as of limbs in the axis of the poles of 

 the heavens. Moreover, the typical features which the imagination 

 summons, run like light to fetch the rest ; they have a creative call 

 to form the remainder of the body. So that when the mind sees 

 the sparkling eye and elevating smile of joy, it next, from these foci, 

 sees the face as their radiant firmament ; and the lifted arms and 

 lifting legs, and the jocund body, come after more slowly, until the 

 stature is there, and the joy, like its artist, is a man. But if any 

 part of the body is missing, a letter is left out of the word, and the 

 creative power has not spelt it. All this shows that the mind 

 imagines the passions structurally, according to the form that they 

 have when in play.* 



The same applies to the intellect, when described not in its effects 

 but in itself. To the mind's eye, it at once assumes the lofty brow 

 and high conversing glance, and thereafter its incarnation proceeds 

 by rapid stages. Here again the central features are first struck; 

 but no sooner are brow and eye on the disk, than they call forth their 

 brethren of the frame and mood, for they all belong to intelligence 

 — the clever nose, the receptive fastidious mouth, the slanted open 

 ear, the considering vibrative head, the awaiting arms, the balancing 

 body, the movable feet, stationary but changeful. All these come 

 part by part from the land of the human form, drawn thither by in- 

 telligence itself with the magnet of the eye. In this case, what we 

 take for abstraction is the centre separated from the rest of the 

 body, and held forcibly apart ; for violence is needed to hold asunder 



* On this subject see further, An Essay upon the Ghost-Belief of Shalspeare, 

 by Alfred Rofle, 8vo., London, 1851. In this admirable performance we have 

 the first beginning of a study of Shakspeare, not according to reasoning and criti- 

 cism, but according to fact and nature. It cheers me to have such a mind as this 

 courageous author's with me, in these untrodden paths. 



