, and here only, all nature combines to breathe over us
a lulling slumber, through which life degenerates into sensation.

199. These considerations are sufficient to explain what we mean by the
epithet "sensuality." Now, taking these three distinctive attributes,
the mysterious, the graceful, and the voluptuous, what is the whole
character? Very nearly--the Greek: for these attributes, common to all
picturesque blue country, are modified in the degree of their presence
by every climate. In England they are all low in their tone; but as we
go southward, the voluptuousness becomes deeper in feeling as the colors
of the earth and the heaven become purer and more passionate, and "the
purple of ocean deepest of dye;" the mystery becomes mightier, for the
greater and more universal energy of the beautiful permits its features
to come nearer, and to rise into the sublime, without causing fear. It
is thus that we get the essence of the Greek feeling, as it was embodied
in their finest imaginations, as it showed itself in the works of their
sculptors and their poets, in which sensation was made almost equal with
thought, and deified by its nobility of association; at once voluptuous,
refined, dreamily mysterious, infinitely beautiful. Hence, it appears
that the spirit of this blue country is essentially Greek; though, in
England and in other northern localities, that spirit is possessed by it
in a diminished and degraded degree. It is also the natural dominion of
the villa, possessing all the attributes which attracted the Romans,
when, in their hours of idleness, they lifted the light arches along the
echoing promontories of Tiber. It is especially suited to the expression
of the edifice of pleasure; and, therefore, is most capable of being
adorned by it.

200. The attention of every one about to raise himself a villa of any
kind should, therefore, be directed to this kind of country; first, as
that in which he will not be felt to be an intruder; secondly, as that
which will, in all probability, afford him the greatest degree of
continuous pleasure, when his eye has become accustomed to the features
of the locality. To the human mind, as on the average constituted, the
features of hill scenery will, by repetition, become tiresome, and of
wood scenery, monotonous; while the simple blue can possess little
interest of any kind. Powerful intellect will generally take perpetual
delight in hill residence; but the general mind soon f