eep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep,
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

The refining influence of the love of beauty draws us mysteriously and
imperceptibly, but none the less powerfully, away from what is false in
thought and base in action; and develops a deep and lasting affinity for
all that is true and good. The good, the true, and the beautiful are
branches of a common root; members of a single whole: and if one of
these members suffer, all the members suffer with it; and if one is
honored, all are honored with it.

THE TEMPTATION.

+Luxury the perversion of beauty.+--Luxury is the pleasure of
possession, instead of pleasure in the thing possessed. Luxury buys
things, not because it likes them, but because it likes to have them.
And so the luxurious man fills his house with all sorts of things, not
because he finds delight in these particular things, and wants to share
that delight with all his friends; but because he supposes these are the
proper things to have, and he wants everybody to know that he has them.

The man who buys things in this way does not know what he wants.
Consequently he gets cheated. He buys ugly things as readily as
beautiful things, if only the seller is shrewd enough to make him
believe they are fashionable. Others, less intelligent than this man,
see what he has done; take for granted that because he has done it, it
must be the proper thing to do; and go and do likewise. Thus taste
becomes dulled and deadened; the costly and elaborate drives out the
plain and simple; the desire for luxury kills out the love of beauty;
and art expires.

THE VICE OF DEFECT.

+Ugly surroundings make ugly souls.+--The outward and the inward are
bound fast together. The beauty or ugliness of the objects we have about
us are the standing choices of our wills. As the object, so is the
subject. We grow into the likeness of what we look upon. Without harmony
and beauty to feed upon, the love of beauty starves and dies. Our hearts
become cold and hard. Not being called out in admiration and delight,
our feelings brood over mean and sensual pleasures; they dwell upon
narrow and selfish concerns; they fasten upon the accumulation of wealth
or the vanquishing of a rival, as substitutes for the nobler interests
that have vanished; and the heart becomes sordid, sensual, mean, petty,
spiteful, and ugly. The spirit of man, like nature, abhors a vacuum; and
into the heart from w