It does not tell us the quality of the thought, it
does not inform and surprise as with intricacies. It speaks no more
explicit or delicate things than does the pulse in its quickening. It
speaks with less division of meanings than does the taking of the breath,
which has impulses and degrees.
No, the eyes do their work, but do it blankly, without communication.
Openings into the being they may be, but the closed cheek is more
communicative. From them the blood of Perdita never did look out. It
ebbed and flowed in her face, her dance, her talk. It was hiding in her
paleness, and cloistered in her reserve, but visible in prison. It leapt
and looked, at a word. It was conscious in the fingers that reached out
flowers. It ran with her. It was silenced when she hushed her answers
to the king. Everywhere it was close behind the doors--everywhere but in
her eyes.
How near at hand was it, then, in the living eyelids that expressed her
in their minute and instant and candid manner! All her withdrawals,
every hesitation, fluttered there. A flock of meanings and intelligences
alighted on those mobile edges.
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