Thoughts on Man | Page 5

one might almost say her
body thought.
What a curious phenomenon is that of blushing! It is impossible to
witness this phenomenon without interest and sympathy. It comes at
once, unanticipated by the person in whom we behold it. It comes from
the soul, and expresses with equal certainty shame, modesty, and vivid,
uncontrollable affection. It spreads, as it were in so many stages, over
the cheeks, the brow, and the neck, of him or her in whom the
sentiment that gives birth to it is working.
Thus far I have not mentioned speech, not perhaps the most inestimable
of human gifts, but, if it is not that, it is at least the endowment, which
makes man social, by which principally we impart our sentiments to
each other, and which changes us from solitary individuals, and
bestows on us a duplicate and multipliable existence. Beside which it
incalculably increases the perfection of one. The man who does not
speak, is an unfledged thinker; and the man that does not write, is but
half an investigator.
Not to enter into all the mysteries of articulate speech and the
irresistible power of eloquence, whether addressed to a single hearer, or
instilled into the ears of many,--a topic that belongs perhaps less to the
chapter of body than mind,--let us for a moment fix our thoughts
steadily upon that little implement, the human voice. Of what
unnumbered modulations is it susceptible! What terror may it inspire!
How may it electrify the soul, and suspend all its functions! How
infinite is its melody! How instantly it subdues the hearer to pity or to
love! How does the listener hang upon every note praying that it may
last for ever,
----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.
But, notwithstanding the infinite beauty, the magazine of excellencies
and perfections, that appertains to the human body, the mind claims,
and justly claims, an undoubted superiority. I am not going into an
enumeration of the various faculties and endowments of the mind of
man, as I have done of his body. The latter was necessary for my
purpose. Before I proceeded to consider the ascendancy of mind, the