第 16 节
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老山文学 更新:2021-02-20 04:46 字数:2542
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THE COLOUR OF LIFE
time。 It was large; and of a dark cast; and glowed (I say literally glowed)
when he spoke with feeling or interest。 The eye alone; I think; indicated
the poetical character and temperament。〃 No eye literally glows; but some
eyes are polished a little more; and reflect。 And this is the utmost that
can possibly have been true as to the eyes of Burns。 But set within the
meanings of impetuous eyelids the lucidity of the dark eyes seemed
broken; moved; directed into fiery shafts。
See; too; the reproach of little; sharp; grey eyes addressed to Hazlitt。
There are neither large nor small eyes; say physiologists; or the difference
is so small as to be negligeable。 But in the eyelids the difference is great
between large and small; and also between the varieties of largeness。
Some have large openings; and some are in themselves broad and long;
serenely covering eyes called small。 Some have far more drawing than
others; and interesting foreshortenings and sweeping curves。
Where else is spirit so evident? And where else is it so spoilt? There
is no vulgarity like the vulgarity of vulgar eyelids。 They have a slang all
their own; of an intolerable kind。 And eyelids have looked all the cruel
looks that have ever made wounds in innocent souls meeting them
surprised。
But all love and all genius have winged their flight from those slight
and unmeasurable movements; have flickered on the margins of lovely
eyelids quick with thought。 Life; spirit; sweetness are there in a small
place; using the finest and the slenderest machinery; expressing meanings
a whole world apart; by a difference of material action so fine that the
sight which appreciates it cannot detect it; expressing intricacies of
intellect; so incarnate in slender and sensitive flesh that nowhere else in
the body of man is flesh so spiritual。
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Colour of Life by Alice
Meynell
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