is a power behind the eye. It must be a victory achieved in the will,
before it can be signified in the eye. ’Tis very certain that each man
carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale
of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should
need no auxiliaries to his personal presence. Whoever looked on him
would consent to his will, being certified that his aims were generous
and universal. The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see
the mud at the bottom of our eye.
If the organ of sight is such a vehicle of power, the other features
have their own. A man finds room in the few square inches of the face
for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his
history, and his wants. The sculptor, and Winckelmann, and Lavater,
will tell you how significant a feature is the nose; how its forms
express strength or weakness of will, and good or bad temper. The nose
of Julius Cæsar, of Dante, and of Pitt, suggest "the terrors of the
beak." What refinement, and what limitations, the teeth betray! "Beware
you don’t laugh," said the wise mother, "for then you show all your
faults."
Balzac left in manuscript a chapter, which he called "_Théorie de la
démarche_" in which he says: "The look, the voice, the respiration, and
the attitude or walk, are identical. But, as it has not been given to
man, the power to stand guard, at once, over these four different
simultaneous expressions of his thought, watch that one which speaks out
the truth, and you will know the whole man."
Palaces interest us mainly in the exhibition of manners, which, in the
idle and expensive society dwelling in them, are raised to a high art.
The maxim of courts is, that manner is power. A calm and resolute
bearing, a polished speech, an embellishment of trifles, and the art of
hiding all uncomfortable feeling, are essential to the courtier: and
Saint Simon, and Cardinal de Retz, and Roederer, and an encyclopædia of
Mémoires, will instruct you, if you wish, in those potent secrets.
Thus, it is a point of pride with kings, to remember faces and names.
It is reported of one prince, that his head had the air of leaning
downwards, in order not to humble the crowd. There are people who come
in ever like a child with a piece of good news. It was said of the late
Lord Holland, that he always came down to breakfast with the air of a
man who had just met with some signal good-fortune. In "_Notre Dame_,"
the grandee took his place on the dais, with the look of one who is
thinking of something else. But we must not peep and eavesdrop at
palace-doors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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