Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the AuthorGodwin, William
Philosophy
Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
Godwin, William
Human beings; Psychology -- Early works to 1850
----that even silence
Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more,
Still to be so displaced.
It is here especially that we are presented with the triumphs of
civilisation. How immeasurable is the distance between the voice of the
clown, who never thought of the power that dwells in this faculty, who
delivers himself in a rude, discordant and unmodulated accent, and is
accustomed to confer with his fellow at the distance of two fields, and
the man who understands his instrument as Handel understood the organ,
and who, whether he thinks of it or no, sways those that hear him as
implicitly as Orpheus is said to have subdued the brute creation!
From the countenance of man let us proceed to his figure. Every limb
is capable of speaking, and telling its own tale. What can equal the
magnificence of the neck, the column upon which the head reposes! The
ample chest may denote an almost infinite strength and power. Let us
call to mind the Apollo Belvidere, and the Venus de Medicis, whose very
"bends are adornings." What loftiness and awe have I seen expressed in
the step of an actress, not yet deceased, when first she advanced, and
came down towards the audience! I was ravished, and with difficulty kept
my seat! Pass we to the mazes of the dance, the inimitable charms and
picturesque beauty that may be given to the figure while still unmoved,
and the ravishing grace that dwells in it during its endless changes and
evolutions.
The upright figure of man produces, incidentally as it were, and by the
bye, another memorable effect. Hence we derive the power of meeting
in halls, and congregations, and crowded assemblies. We are found "at
large, though without number," at solemn commemorations and on festive
occasions. We touch each other, as the members of a gay party are
accustomed to do, when they wait the stroke of an electrical machine,
and the spark spreads along from man to man. It is thus that we have
our feelings in common at a theatrical representation and at a public
dinner, that indignation is communicated, and patriotism become
irrepressible.
One man can convey his sentiments in articulate speech to a thousand;
and this is the nursing mother of oratory, of public morality, of public
religion, and the drama. The privilege we thus possess, we are indeed
too apt to abuse; but man is scarcely ever so magnificent and so awful,
as when hundreds of human heads are assembled together, hundreds of
faces lifted up to contemplate one object, and hundreds of voices
uttered in the expression of one common sentiment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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