Chapter 161

AND OTHER STORIES 149 which consists in the mere avoidance of vice appeals directly to the understanding, and can thus be circumscribed in rule , the loftier virtue, which flames in creation, can be apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to the merits of denial — to the excellences which refrain. Beyond these, the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build a ‘Cato/ but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an "Inferno/ The thing done, however — the wonder accomplished — the capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the negative school who, through inability to create, have scoffed at creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason, never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration from their instinct of beauty. ""The author's observations on the artificial style," continued Ellison, ""are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is the reference to the sense of human interest. The principle expressed is incontrovertible — but there may be something beyond it. There may be an object in keeping with the principle — an object unattainable by the means ordinarily possessed by individuals, yet which, if attained, would lend a charm to the landscapegarden far surpassing that which a sense of merely human interest could bestow. A poet, having very unusual pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the necessary idea of art, or culture, or, as our author expresses it, of interest, so imbue his designs at once wifh extent and novelty of beauty as to convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages of interest or design , while relieving his work of the harshness or technicality of the worldly art . ""In the most rugged of wildernesses — in the most savage