power, and to crown them
with the history of what, by them, God has done for his soul. And, in
doing this, is he improving the Word of God? Just such difference as
there is between the sense in which a minister may be said to improve a
text, to the people's comfort, and the sense in which an atheist might
declare that he could improve the Book, which, if any man shall add
unto, there shall be added unto him the plagues that are written
therein; just such difference is there between that which, with respect
to Nature, man is, in his humbleness, called upon to do, and that which,
in his insolence, he imagines himself capable of doing.

Sec. VI. Have no fear, therefore, reader, in judging between nature and
art, so only that you love both. If you can love one only, then let it
be Nature; you are safe with her: but do not then attempt to judge the
art, to which you do not care to give thought, or time. But if you love
both, you may judge between them fearlessly; you may estimate the last,
by its making you remember the first, and giving you the same kind of
joy. If, in the square of the city, you can find a delight, finite,
indeed, but pure and intense, like that which you have in a valley among
the hills, then its art and architecture are right; but if, after fair
trial, you can find no delight in them, nor any instruction like that of
nature, I call on you fearlessly to condemn them.

We are forced, for the sake of accumulating our power and knowledge, to
live in cities; but such advantage as we have in association with each
other is in great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellowship with
nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to
meditate in at eventide. Then the function of our architecture is, as
far as may be, to replace these; to tell us about nature; to possess us
with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and full of tenderness,
like her, and rich in portraitures of her; full of delicate imagery of
the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures now far
away from us in their own solitude. If ever you felt or found this in a
London Street,--if ever it furnished you with one serious thought, or
one ray of true and gentle pleasure,--if there is in your heart a true
delight in its grim railings and dark casements, and wasteful finery of
shops, and feeble coxcombry of club-houses,--it is well: promote the
building of more like them. But if they never taught you anything