THE EXPRESSION OF THE PASSIONS. 



435 



,The darksome cave they enter, wher they find 

 That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, 

 Musing full sadly in his sullein inind: 

 His griesie lockes, long groweii and unbound, 

 Disordi ed hong about his shoulders round, 

 And hid his face, through wliich his hollow eyne 

 Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound ; 

 His raw-bone cheekes, through penurie and pine, " 

 Were shronke into liis iawes, as lie did never dine.* 



The best picture of this passion is Hogarth's, whose scene is admirably 

 chosen, and consists of the gaming-house, with its horrible implements and 

 furniture, in which the maddening sufferer had thrown his last stake, and met 

 his utter ruin. 



Tension, then, permanent or alternating, is the main character of the vio- 

 lent and repulsive passions ; but if the attack be abrupt and intolerably vehe- 

 ment, the nervous system becomes instantaneously exhausted, as by a stroke 

 of lightning ; and the muscles are instantly relaxed, paralyzed, and power- 

 less. Milton has given us an exquisite exemplification of this in the follow- 

 ing picture of Adam, immediately after the first deadly transgression. 



On th' other side Adam, soon as he heard 

 The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed, 

 Astonied stood, and blank ! while horror chill ' 

 Ran through his veins, and all his joints relax'd. 

 From his slack hand the garland wreath'd for Eve 

 Dovi^n dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed. 

 Speechless he stood, and pale 



But let us turn to a pleasanter subject. I have said, that in the expression 

 of the attractive passions all is flexible and pliant. Their characters are 

 necessarily less powerful, and many of them are common to the entire class. 



In perfect tranquillity and content of mind, when all the passions are lulled 

 into a calm, and the gentle spirit of imagination alone is stirring on the sur- 

 face of the mental lake, there is, as I have already observed, a softened out- 

 line, a smooth and uniform sweep of the entire figure ; every feature of the 

 body uniting in the repose of the soul. Such fs often the picture of him who 

 loves Nature for her own sake, and listens with soothing meditation amid 

 the s'teeps, the woods, or the wilds, that stretch their romantic scenery around 

 him ; and calls for no companions, for he feels no solitude. 



To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 

 Slowly to trace the forest's shady scene, 

 Wliere things that own not man's dominion dwell, 

 And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 

 To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 

 With the wild flock that never needs a fold; 

 Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; 

 This is not solitude: 't is but to hold 

 Converse with Nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd.t 



But let this tranquillity be broken in upon by any of the agreeable passions, 

 and still something of the same softness and pliancy of feature will remain-, 

 and the changes will be neither numerous nor powerful. This remark may 

 be strikingly verified by turning to Le Brun ; and still more so by turning to 

 other French pathematists, who have still farther subdivided the passions. 

 In ADMIRATI.ON aud agreeble surprise, there is a slight muscular agitation ; 

 and a gentle advance to stretching or tenseness in simple attention, venera- 

 tion, and elevated revery ; but there is no constraint. The whole is calm, 

 placid, and void of exertion. Rapture and laughter make a somewhat 

 nearer approach to the former qualities, and especially the low broad grin of 

 the Dutch painters; but the muscles, though stretched, are still flexible and 

 at ease. In eager desire we approximate more closely the tension of the 

 violent and repulsive passions : but eager desire is a compound emotion ; it 

 is desire with uneasiness, and, consequently, borders on pain, if it do not enter 

 its boundary. 



* Faorie Queene, b. i. cantos ix. xxxv. t Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto ii. 



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