into viewing proportion as the origin of all beauty! For it certainly is that one thing without which art could have no existence. As theory and order are to science, so are design and proportion to art. But the latter are the higher, for they include the former. Design never attains its own perfection until it coincides with truth; whereas theory is merely a substitute for truth where truth is not discovered. And proportion is as greatly superior to mere order, as a well formed man is to a skeleton on wires. You may have order without proportion, as is often the case in works of science; but can not have proportion without including order. For proportion embraces both order and symmetry, and much of its own besides. Unity of design, and perfect proportion in view of it, constitute the grand requisites of art, and to the beauty of all her works are indispensable.

CHAPTER VII.

OF BEAUTY DERIVED FROM EMOTIONS WHICH ARE MORE MARKED THAN

THEIR INTELLECTUAL ANTECEDENTS

CHEERFULNESS SURPRISE

JOY -GLADNESS - CONTENTMENT HOPE.

THE feelings attendant upon all those classes of conceptions already mentioned, although highly pleasurable, are to the eye of ordinary reflection lost in their respective antecedents, so that we do not afterward recognize the real fact of the succession. But when we look out from the well known intellection upon the less commonly known feeling, we find here, as well as in the case of sensation, that perception of the relation between the idea and its succeeding pleasureable emotion is the true antecedent of beauty.

On the other hand, many of our emotions are so prominent and luminous as to absorb or eclipse their preceding ideas. In order to show the existence of the relation in such a case, we must change our point of view, and from the well known feeling look out upon the less known intellection.

As we have to do with states of mind only in as far as they are pleasurable, it comports best with our purpose

to present our specimens under the head of grave and gay. The latter, although to cursory observation the most attractive, are in reality the most limited in number, and the least satisfying classes of pleasures: and even of their own number the least showy is the most abundant in enjoyment.

The quiet cheerfulness which accompanies the healthful operation of all our faculties of mind and body, is both more satisfying and of longer duration than mirth and even to external view is a surer mark of a man at peace with the world and his own conscience. Nearly akin to sensation, it will be found, upon faithful observation, to be the consequent of a healthy state of mind and body. None can enjoy it under bodily disease, unless endowed with that heavenly hope which can extinguish all the pains of sense; and with a conscience ill at ease it refuses to abide. It is a feeling highly productive of pleasure in retrospect and by association, throwing its own rosy light over all with which it is connected, making even the unproductive and helpless years of childhood more delightful to the eye of memory than the proudest triumphs of maturer life can be without it. This is the magician who clothes the hard creations of necessity in a robe of beauty; at whose command falling waters give forth joyous music, the woods are vocal with delight, and the mountains and barren rocky peaks are lovely in their wilderness. It times the heart to the music of the external world. Take it away, as too often is

done in this world of sin, and consequent calamity, and nature becomes like faded finery-like a theater by daylight-no trace of loveliness in all her forms, no meaning in her sounds. The murmuring waters are now but the descent of a fluid in obedience to the necessity of its gravitation; the woods are only growing timber, the wilds mere uncultivated lands, and the mind turns in weariness from all present things, without being able to repose upon the future. This feeling is seldom manifested in noisy expression; but by filling the heart with gladness it gives a corresponding tone to all the words and actions of him by whom it is enjoyed.

When the ordinary train of suggestion is interrupted by an addition to our intellectual stores, we are conscious of a sudden, brisk, but short-lived emotion attendant upon that change, no matter what the object be which causes it. If the new object come without anticipation or warning, the succeeding emotion is simple surprise, which is instantly followed by inquiry into the nature of the exciting cause, which again may result in feelings of either pleasure or pain. If not only unanticipated, but contrary to all that could be anticipated, the feeling becomes astonishment; and if the object be also great in itself, or contradictory to what was previously known, it merges into wonder. If it comes expected, it either corresponds to expectation or it does not. If it does, surprise is brief and feeble,

and soon gives way to the emotions naturally arising

1

from contemplation of the subject; if it does not, we have an immediately succeeding feeling of disappoint

ment.

The mental activity thus aroused is pleasurable, and unless the exciting cause be in itself disagreeable, will be productive of more enduring delight. For by awakening inquiry concerning them, the capabilities of the subject are discovered and brought to bear upon the mind.

The use which is made of this short-lived pleasure, in the art of book-making, is too well known either to require exposition or condemnation. In the other arts its shallowness is also apparent, yet not so much so as entirely to prevent even painters from making, occasionally, an extravagant demand upon it. The inexplicable architectural piles, the unprecedented attitudinizing in some of the works of Martin, are nothing more than surprizing, and the clap-trap of the ordinary novel and play belongs confessedly to the humblest department of art.

Novelty is neither a quality of objects, nor an emotion, but only a relation existing between a new object and the mind's previous knowledge; and the first feeling which arises upon the perception of new objects has no regard to their real nature, but only this relation, that is, to the fact that the object has not been known before. But this relation must, from its nature, be of very brief duration, as also the subsequent emotion; so that, although in itself essentially