MY OWN OPINION--_A la Shakspeare_.
There are, who say she is not beautiful.
"Her forehead's not well turned," cries one. "The nose
Too large"--"Her mouth ill-chiselled," says a third.
With these, I claim no fellowship.
For me, ('tis an odd taste, I know, and now-a-days,
When people _feel_ by _rule_, such taste is thought
Exceedingly romantic--yet 'tis true,)
I look not with this mathematic eye
On woman's face; I carry not about
The compass, and the square--and when I'm asked,
"Is that face fine?" draw forth my instruments,
And coolly calculate the length of chin,
Th' expanse of forehead, and the distance take
Twixt eye and nose, and then, twixt nose and mouth,
And if, exactly correspondent, it
Should not prove _just so much_, two and three-eighths,
Or, one four-fifths, disgusted, turn away,
And vow "'tis vile! there is no beauty in't!"
Out, on this mechanic disposition!
Look you! _That man was born a carpenter._
He hath no heart--he hath no soul in him,
Who thus insults the "human face divine,"
And tests its beauty with a vile inch-rule,
As he would test the beauty of a box,
A chess-board, or a writing-desk! Oh no!
It is not in the feature's symmetry
(For choose of earth the most symmetric face,
Phidias shall carve as perfect--_out of stone_,)
That the deep beauty lies! Give me the face
_That's warm--that lives--that breathes--made radiant_
_By an informing spirit from within!_
Give me the face that varies _with the thought_,
That answers to the heart! and seems, the while,
With such a separate consciousness endued,
That, as we gaze, we can almost believe
_It is itself a heart_--and, _of itself_,
Doth feel and palpitate!
And such is her's!
One need _but look on_, to converse with her!
Why I, without a thought of weariness,
Have sat, and gazed on her for hours! and oft,
As I have listened to her voice, and marked
The beautiful flash of her fine dark eye,
And the eloquent beaming of her face,
And the tremulous glow that, when she spoke,
Pervaded her whole being,--I have dreamed
A spirit held communion with me then,
And could have knelt to worship!