Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/85

 man fulfil in body and soul the idea which God embodied in him.'

'Fourierist!' cried Lancelot, laughing. But surely you never saw a face which had lost by wear less of the divine image? How thoroughly it exemplifies your great law of Protestant art, that the Ideal is best manifested in the Peculiar.' How classic, how independent of clime or race, is its bland, majestic self-possession! how thoroughly Norse its massive squareness!'

'And yet, as a Cornishman, he should be no Norseman.'

'I beg your pardon! Like all noble races, the Cornish owe their nobleness to the impurity of their blood—to its perpetual loans from foreign veins. See how the serpentine curve of his nose, his long nostril, and protruding, sharp-cut lips, mark his share of Phœnician or Jewish blood! how Norse again, that dome-shaped forehead! how Celtic those dark curls, that restless grey eye, with its 'swinden blicken,' like Von Troneg Hagen's in the Niebelungen Lied!'

He turned: Honoria was devouring his words. He saw it, for he was in love, and young love makes man's senses as keen as woman's.

'Look! look at him now!' said Claude, in a low voice. 'How he sits, with his hands on his knees, the enormous size of his limbs quite concealed by the careless grace, with his Egyptian face, like some dumb granite Memnon!'