A gun having "Soul", I fully understand the meaning as I can attest to having that personal feeling with English Best guns. I once went down to a local gunshop as I had been told by the owner, he had just received an HJ Hussey. Thinking I may have serious interest I packed up a couple of Parker Repro's I had in the safe.
When I arrived, I immediately could tell by handling the Hussey that it seemed to have something special. Whereas the Parkers being machine made guns just felt like lumps of metal in my hands.
Sometimes you can feel the "soul" in a gun that had numerous craftsmen work on it and made it special. And the previous owners that had carried the gun.