of anything to say it is "in
good taste." But,[3] so far as this higher education has a tendency to
narrow the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest
of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can
hardly please, and what is brightest hardly entertain,--so far as it
fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in
anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in
which it indicates some greatness of their own, (as people build
marble porticoes, and inlay marble floors, not so much because they
like the colours of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as
because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all human
eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber);--so far as it leads
people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and aspect, to value
of substance and heart, liking a well-_said_ thing better than a true
thing, and a well-trained manner better than a sincere one, and a
delicately-formed face better than a good-natured one,--and in all
other ways and things setting custom and semblance above everlasting
truth;--so far, finally, as it induces a sense of inherent distinction
between class and class, and causes everything to be more or less
despised which has no social rank, so that the affection, pleasure,
and grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with
the affection and grief of a well-bred man;--just so far, in all these
several ways, the feeling induced by what is called "a liberal
education" is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art.

[3] Nobody need begin this second volume sentence unless they are
breathed like the Graeme:--

"Right up Ben Ledi could he press, And not a sob his toil confess."

7. He who habituates himself in his daily life to seek for the stern
facts in whatever he hears or sees, will have these facts again
brought before him by the involuntary imaginative power, in their
noblest associations; and he who seeks for frivolities and fallacies,
will have frivolities and fallacies again presented to him in his
dreams.[4]

[4] Very good. Few people have any idea how much more important the
government of the mind is, than the force of its exertion. Nearly all
the world flog their horses, without ever looking where they are going.

8. All the histories of the Bible are yet waiting to be painted. Moses
has never been painted; Elijah never; David never (except as a mere
rud