ignorant man, and little acquainted with the laws
of nature; he is certainly a busy man, and has not much time to watch
nature; but he never saw a serpent cross his path, nor a bird flit
across the sky, nor a lizard bask upon a stone, without learning so much
of the sublimity and inner nature of each as will not suffer him
thenceforth to conceive them coldly. He may not be able to carve plumes
or scales well; but his creatures will bite and fly, for all that. The
ignoble workman is the very reverse of this. He never felt, never looked
at nature; and if he endeavor to imitate the work of the other, all his
touches will be made at random, and all his extravagances will be
ineffective; he may knit brows, and twist lips, and lengthen beaks, and
sharpen teeth, but it will be all in vain. He may make his creatures
disgusting, but never fearful.

Sec. XLIX. There is, however, often another cause of difference than this.
The true grotesque being the expression of the _repose_ or play of a
_serious_ mind, there is a false grotesque opposed to it, which is the
result of the _full exertion_ of a _frivolous_ one. There is much
grotesque which is wrought out with exquisite care and pains, and as
much labor given to it as if it were of the noblest subject; so that the
workman is evidently no longer apathetic, and has no excuse for
unconnectedness of thought, or sudden unreasonable fear. If he awakens
horror now, it ought to be in some truly sublime form. His strength is
in his work; and he must not give way to sudden humor, and fits of
erratic fancy. If he does so, it must be because his mind is naturally
frivolous, or is for the time degraded into the deliberate pursuit of
frivolity. And herein lies the real distinction between the base
grotesque of Raphael and the Renaissance, above alluded to, and the true
Gothic grotesque. Those grotesques or arabesques of the Vatican, and
other such work, which have become the patterns of ornamentation in
modern times, are the fruit of great minds degraded to base objects. The
care, skill, and science, applied to the distribution of the leaves, and
the drawing of the figures, are intense, admirable, and accurate;
therefore, they ought to have produced a grand and serious work, not a
tissue of nonsense. If we can draw the human head perfectly, and are
masters of its expression and its beauty, we have no business to cut it
off, and hang it up by the hair at the end of a garland. If we can draw
th