n Nature to see how she expresses
herself. When we thoroughly understand the subject it is easy to
translate from one language into another. Raphael, in muffling up the
figure of Elymas the Sorcerer in his garments, appears to have extended
the idea of blindness even to his clothes. Was this design? Probably
not; but merely the feeling of analogy thoughtlessly suggesting this
device, which being so suggested was retained and carried on, because
it flattered or fell in with the original feeling. The tide of passion,
when strong, overflows and gradually insinuates itself into all nooks
and corners of the mind. Invention (of the best kind) I therefore do not
think so distinct a thing from feeling as some are apt to imagine. The
springs of pure feeling will rise and fill the moulds of fancy that are
fit to receive it. There are some striking coincidences of colour
in well-composed pictures, as in a straggling weed in the foreground
streaked with blue or red to answer to a blue or red drapery, to the
tone of the flesh or an opening in the sky:--not that this was intended,
or done by the rule (for then it would presently become affected and
ridiculous), but the eye, being imbued with a certain colour, repeats
and varies it from a natural sense of harmony, a secret craving and
appetite for beauty, which in the same manner soothes and gratifies the
eye of taste, though the cause is not understood. _Tact, finesse_,
is nothing but the being completely aware of the feeling belonging to
certain situations, passions, etc., and the being consequently sensible
to their slightest indications or movements in others. One of the most
remarkable instances of this sort of faculty is the following story,
told of Lord Shaftesbury, the grandfather of the author of the
_Characteristics_. He had been to dine with Lady Clarendon and her
daughter, who was at that time privately married to the Duke of York
(afterwards James II.), and as he returned home with another nobleman
who had accompanied him, he suddenly turned to him, and said, 'Depend
upon it, the Duke has married Hyde's daughter.' His companion could
not comprehend what he meant; but on explaining himself, he said, 'Her
mother behaved to her with an attention and a marked respect that it is
impossible to account for in any other way; and I am sure of it.' His
conjecture shortly afterwards proved to be the truth. This was carrying
the prophetic spirit of common sense as far as it could go.