so many more among my
fellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic
suffering or of world-stirring actions. I turn, without shrinking, from
cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an
old woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner,
while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls
on her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinning-wheel, and
her stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious
necessaries of life to her--or I turn to that village wedding, kept
between four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance
with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-aged
friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and probably
with quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of unmistakable
contentment and goodwill. "Foh!" says my idealistic friend, "what vulgar
details! What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exact
likeness of old women and clowns? What a low phase of life! What clumsy,
ugly people!"

But bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I
hope? I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race have
not been ugly, and even among those "lords of their kind," the British,
squat figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are not
startling exceptions. Yet there is a great deal of family love amongst
us. I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that the
Apollo curl on the summit of their brows would be decidedly trying; yet
to my certain knowledge tender hearts have beaten for them, and their
miniatures--flattering, but still not lovely--are kissed in secret by
motherly lips. I have seen many an excellent matron, who could have
never in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet of
yellow love-letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showered
kisses on her sallow cheeks. And I believe there have been plenty of
young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite
sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, and
yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who
waddles. Yes! Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers that
bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty--it flows with resistless
force and brings beauty with it.

All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us culti