t will and does, as we advance in
years, deaden in some degree our enjoyment of all beauty, but it in no
wise influences our determination of what is beautiful, and what is not.
You see the broad blue sky every day over your heads; but you do not for
that reason determine blue to be less or more beautiful than you did at
first; you are unaccustomed to see stones as blue as the sapphire, but
you do not for that reason think the sapphire less beautiful than other
stones. The blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a
source of delight; and whether seen perpetually over your head, or
crystallized once in a thousand years into a single and incomparable
stone, your acknowledgment of its beauty is equally natural, simple, and
instantaneous. Pardon me for engaging you in a metaphysical discussion;
for it is necessary to the establishment of some of the greatest of all
architectural principles that I should fully convince you of this great
truth, and that I should quite do away with the various objections to
it, which I suppose must arise in your minds. Of these there is one more
which I must briefly meet. You know how much confusion has been
introduced into the subject of criticism, by reference to the power of
Association over the human heart; you know how often it has been said
that custom must have something to do with our ideas of beauty, because
it endears so many objects to the affections. But, once for all, observe
that the powers of association and of beauty are two entirely distinct
powers,--as distinct, for instance, as the forces of gravitation and
electricity. These forces may act together, or may neutralize one
another, but are not for that reason to be supposed the same force; and
the charm of association will sometimes enhance, and sometimes entirely
overpower, that of beauty; but you must not confound the two together.
You love many things because you are accustomed to them, and are pained
by many things because they are strange to you; but that does not make
the accustomed sight more beautiful, or the strange one less so. The
well-known object may be dearer to you, or you may have discovered
charms in it which others cannot; but the charm was there before you
discovered it, only needing time and love to perceive it. You love your
friends and relations more than all the world beside, and may perceive
beauties in their faces which others cannot perceive; but you feel that
you would be ridiculous in