Sensuality

“ I have tried to depict the sort of temptation that besets most artists at this stage of their career: the temptation to abandon the struggle for the sake of a purely sensual existence. In this case, however, the appeal of sensuality is conveyed under the guise of a dream. It is resisted, and the struggle begins anew. ”

“ Given a wide range to sensual pleasure in the hand, but a good and extensive Line of the Head, the former will be corrected by it, as reason dominates passion; or given the strong powers of sensuality, with a wide range to the divine world by the space occupied between the Line of Heart and the mounts, and again, religion, love of art and science, will correct and keep under extreme sensuality. ”

“ The sensuality so prevalent appears to me to arise rather from indolence of mind and dull senses, than from an exuberance of life, which often fructifies the whole character when the vivacity of youthful spirits begins to subside into strength of mind. ”

“ There is the way of sensuality. Those who walk in it take appetite as their guide. Their main object in life is to gratify their physical desires. Some of them are delicate, and some of them are coarse. ”

“ His is, without a doubt, the deepest nature and temperament among the féfibres, and his lyrics are the most poignant. He has a keen sense of physical beauty in woman, and his verse is replete' with suppressed passion, but he never sinks to sensuality. ”

“ He honestly mistook his sensuality for romantic emotion, his vacillation for the artistic temperament, and his idleness for philosophic calm. ”

“ The sensualist has by self-indulgence, blunted the edge of feeling, and it is impossible for him to experience this delicate sensation of exquisite delight,—this marvellous assurance that here and now, face to face, stands the One for whom all time shall be merged into a Song of Love, and upon whom all the sweetest thoughts of imagination shall be brought to bear for the furtherance of mutual joy! ”

“ In the next movement the soul turns to Art—Art in her myriad phases, radiant in beauty, gleaming with the thousand hues of the palette of romance. The soul wanders through scene after scene of ever-changing delight, each one more enchanting than the last. ”

“ While Beauty's deeply-pictured smiles impart
A pang more dear than pleasure to the heart—
Warm as thy sighs shall flow the Lesbian strain,
And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain.
"Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more sacred deem,
And steep thy song in Mercy's mellow stream ;
To pensive drops the radiant eye beguile—
For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile ”

“ The splendor, the beauty, the glowing language of the scene, the strains of music, softer and more entrancing than ever swept across her senses,—the very picturesque effect of everything,—varied with every artifice of light and shadow, carried her away, and bore her to an ideal world, where she, too, had her homage of devotion, where her beauty had its worshippers, and she was herself loved. ”

“ He feels it in the beauty of woman — in the grace of her step — in the lustre of her eye — in the melody of her voice — in her soft laughter, in her sigh — in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. ”

“ But the charm that won men, her charm of charms, was her mouth—mobile, slightly pouted, not too narrow, of a wonderful, vividly healthy and vital red. She had beauty, she had intelligence. But it was impossible for a man to think of either, once his glance had been caught by those expressive, inviting lips of hers, so young, so fresh, with their ever-changing, ever-fascinating line expressing in a thousand ways the passion and poetry of the kiss. ”

“ Oh, the exquisite, the ecstatic delight of this first awakening into the manhood of feeling!—when the passion-flower is just opening—when the nerves are troubled, for the first time, by the sensibilities of sex—when the blooming cheek, the rosy lip, the inviting glance, and the happily-moulded rotundities of the female form, become, for the first time, an object of fearful, of indescribable, of trembling interest! ”

“ The spirit floating over these forms of beauty, and adorning them with all the richness of colour—painting the rose, and giving perfume to the violet—is, in the poet’s mind, one which ascends to nearly the highest point of etherealization, and which becomes, indeed, to him a spirit of light; they ride upon the zephyrs, and they float, in all the luxury of an empyreal enjoyment, down to the earth upon a sunbeam. ”

“ That wraps her spirit in such ecstasy.
⁠Then had you known what 'tis to feel the charm
Of all that's beautiful in our fair earth;
⁠For her mind fed on loveliness, nor form,
Real nor spiritual, that has its birth,
⁠But was familiar to her delicate eye,
Until her spirit became poetry!
⁠And her I loved for beauty that is given
⁠To make us less of earth and more of heaven. ”

“ The eye glows with noble desire; enthusiasm shines from that fair brow, surmounted only by clustering curls, not yet by the laurel wreath. He is a poet. The wondrous smile of love, of life, is on his lips; romance dwells in these thoughtful eyes, drollery in the cheeks' roguish curves. ”

“ And woke the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss;
Who thrilled with light of love in every pore,
Opened her flower-blue eyes, and looked in his.
Then all things felt life fluttering at their core—
The world shook mystical in lambent bliss. ”

“ The most amorous appealing eyes, in their moments of apparent inspiration, were usually, if the truth should be confessed, an index of thoughts dreamily loitering through visions of flint-locks, steeple-chases, and even vulgar tankards of small-beer. Now-a-days, whatever savour of romance clung about the creatures, was from their persistent contact, through every phase of evolution, with the finer feminine clay. Yet, could a soul completely gross and commonplace find its expression in a personality so melancholy and so noble? ”

“ The poet, when he wishes to convey the impression of a beautiful woman, does not set out her features and her stature and all the details of her aspect. He tries to awaken some realization of her by a bold and fantastic leap of the imagination straight to the heart of the matter—he makes her a perfume, a light, a music, a memory of goddesses. ”

“ By no catalogue of summarized details could this young woman have laid claim to beauty, but in the flashing play of her expression, the exquisite golden coloring, one could not evade the charm of a certain warm witchery, of the passionate beat of innocent life. The wonder of her lay in the sparkle of her inner self. Every gleam of the deep true eyes, every impulsive motion of the slight supple body, expressed some phase of her infinite variety. ”

“ No sentiment of sublimity raised him above the grosser atmosphere in which love is tainted with lust, luxurious images are sought for their own sake,-8- and passion dwindles in the languor of voluptuousness. ”

“ But even her love of the beautiful was carried to excess. It was a passion with her which would, in a sturdier age, have been considered a vice. She delighted in the scent of flowers, the song of the thrushes in the spring; colour, and beautiful forms. Doubtless the emotion they caused her was pure enough, and it was natural that, highly bred, cultivated, and refined as she was, she should feel these delicate, sensuous pleasures in a greater degree than lower natures do. ”

“ When you heighten the brilliance of your complexion with the loveliest colour, when you perfume your whole body with the most precious essences, when you clothe yourself in your most beautiful garments, when you seek to distinguish yourself from your companions by your gracefulness in the dance, and the sweetness of your song, as you gently dispute with them in beauty, in tenderness, in vivacity, I cannot imagine that you have any other aim than to please me ”

“ The Passions therefore of the human Heart, expressed either in the living Countenance, or the mimetic Strokes of Art, will affect the Soul of the Beholder with a similar and responsive Disposition. What wonder then is it that Beauty, borrowing thus the Look of softening Love, whose Power can lull the most watchful of the Senses, should cast that sweet Nepenthe upon our Hearts, and enchant our corresponding Thoughts to rest in the Embraces of Desire? ”

“ She had exquisite lines, but lines follow movement, and escape incessantly; they are lost and found again; they cause aesthetic joys and despair. A beautiful line is the lightning which deliciously wounds the eyes. One admires and one is surprised. What makes one love is a soft and terrible force, more powerful than beauty. ”

“ Because in everything, and especially in love, perfect harmony — absolute agreement in motion, voice, words, and in demonstrations of tenderness, is necessary in the person who moves, speaks, and manifests affection; harmony is necessary in age, in height, in the color of the hair, and in the style of beauty. ”

“ Love of the beautiful and sublime was with her almost a passion, and conversing with her, when animated by her favourite theme, was like reading a page of rare poetry, or gazing upon a series of paintings, the work of a well-skilled hand. ”

“ Appear, although with fear and trembling,
At Beauty’s call, as Beauty’s bard.
Yet why despair if winds can summon
Minstrels and music when they please?
For who but deems the lips of woman
More potent than an evening breeze? ”

“ And it all shines—how it shines!—under the soft cloud fringes, and when by accident a full-hearted deep-pink rose comes and sits alone among these young twigs and sprays the sight gives that strange ache of pleasure that hints how difficult perpetual ecstasy would be to bear. ”

“ But if we look for our third pleasurable impression, our beautiful light, we shall find that unchanged, whether it fall upon a magnificently arrayed goddess or upon a sordid slut And, conversely, the beautiful woman, when withdrawn from that light and placed in any other, will be equally lovely in form, even if we cast her in plaster, and lose the colour of her skin and hair; or if we leave her not only the beautiful tints of her flesh and hair, but her own splendidly coloured garments, we shall still have, in whatsoever light, a magnificent piece of colour. ”

“ There is a deep and lingering tone in the harmony of all beauty that resounds in our souls with too full and solemn a vibration for pleasure alone. In fact, intensity, even of joy and delight, is in itself serious; 'tis impossible to be fulfilled with emotion of any sort, and not feel as though we were within the shadow of a cloud. [68] I remember when first I recited Juliet to my mother, she said I spoke the balcony [Pg 170] scene almost sadly. ”

“ To weave fancies on God, the Madonna, the affections, on everything; to barter the realities of life for the unreality of a dream; to be master of the fantasy that endows the eye with seductive charm, the voice with voluptuous melody, the smile with fascination that makes the kiss irresistible; to feed one’s nerves on the torments of others, bringing about the enacting of the drama that is artificial for oneself, and terribly earnest for everybody else. ”

“ A few artists have painted with the delicacy of color and touch that suggests the ethereal. Woman's form idealized has served such art, expressive of the invisible.
Can you see Love? Love centers in the babe, the child. ”

“ Now our sensuous nature actually acquires this preponderance, when the ideas of suffering rise to a degree of vividness that no longer allows us to distinguish a sympathetic affection from a personal affection, or our own proper Ego from the subject that suffers,—reality, in short, from poetry. The sensuous also gains the upper hand when it finds an aliment in the great number of its objects, and in that dazzling light which an over-excited imagination diffuses over it. ”

“ It was still his assumption that as a sleeping body was beautiful with its breath rising and lowering the chest rhythmically like a raft on an ocean, so an artist, the appreciator of beauty in the mundane, would have an artist's aberrations from the insensate throngs, and as such, such appreciative aberrations should not be judged as anything that was particularly queer or at any rate queerer than anything else. ”

“ The grace, and vivacity, and tenderness of her sex have their place in the mighty sway which she holds over his spirit. The lessons of recorded wisdom, which he reads with her eyes, come to his mind with a new charm, as they blend with the beloved melody of her voice. ”

“ But there is not a doubt that those born and brought up among scenes of great natural sublimity and beauty, imbibe this feeling in a larger degree, and their minds are more easily imbued with the glorious colouring of romance,--the inspired visions of the poet. ”

“ Too much, we are of opinion, cannot be said of any marvel in nature, unless it be trivial or false. The old prosaical charge against hyperbolical praises of the beautiful, we hold to be naught. Ask a lover, and he will say, and say truly, that no human terms can do justice to the sweetness in his mistress’s eyes—to the virgin bloom on her cheek. If words could equal them, Nature would hardly be our superior. ”

“ You plunge into sensualism, and live in the low, vulgar atmosphere of fleshly delight and sensuous excitements in order to drown thought. And some of you do it by the even simpler process of merely giving no heed to such thoughts when kindled. ”

“ But if we give the name emotion to that perfectly vague but unmistakable excitement with which we respond to purely formal beauty,--that indescribable exaltation with which we listen to "absolute" music,--then we must say that that emotion is but another name for aesthetic pleasure. Objectively, we have formal beauty; subjectively, on the physiological side, a harmonious action of the organism, and on the mental side the undefined exaltation which is known as aesthetic pleasure. ”