Page:Language of the Eye.djvu/78

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60
THE LANGUAGE

than the idealities of imagination or love: if this eye is united to a small ear its owner is conceited and sometimes worse. Tranquillity in the eye is part of the province of beauty,—this principle was well known to Grecian sculptors, who rarely presented their chef d'œuvres in passionate display. If the eye is in repose, the other features generally concord to that dictation, and then the face represents the nature and quality of the spirit: so we see to the bottom of seas and rivers when the waves are tranquil, and the stream runs smothly. (See Treatise on the Passions, by Carlo Le Brun.) The Grecians represented the eye in their best works as placid: indicating such was the divine expression ever seen in their gods. (See Storia delle Arti.) Great and signal expression requires motion in the eye; yet much grace cannot exist with much impassioned convulsion. In the works of the Grecian sculptors they uniformly preserved composure; and, therefore, the highest power wholly unexhausted, their single figures and even their dancing figures, were never allowed to exhaust their expression. Perhaps the ancient figures might furnish an excellent model, to prevent the moderns from outstepping the bounds of a modest deportment. Propertius says—

Molli diducunt candida gestu Brachia.

Indeed, no violent passion or immoderate evolution can assort with beauty; it yields none of beauty's loves and fears. Repose in the eye is one of the very express images of innocence, goodness, power, and nobility; no fear is there, but full possession of great virtue, and the companionship of angels; there you see no hard or rugged line on that heavenly face. The ancients sought for expression in the eyes of their gods, as betokening motives far superior to their own; and, therefore, the expression of eternal peace and youth was ever adopted. (See Monu-