elights us most and seems
to us to come nearest to the ideal is not what embodies any one
possible form, but that which, by embodying none, suggests many,
and stirs the mass of our inarticulate imagination with a pervasive
thrill. Each thing, without being a beauty in itself, by stimulating
our indeterminate emotion, seems to be a hint and expression of
infinite beauty. That infinite perfection which cannot be realized,
because it is self-contradictory, may be thus suggested, and on
account of this suggestion an indeterminate effect may be regarded
as higher, more significant, and more beautiful than any
determinate one.

The illusion, however, is obvious. The infinite perfection
suggested is an absurdity. What exists is a vague emotion, the
objects of which, if they could emerge from the chaos of a
confused imagination, would turn out to be a multitude of
differently beautiful determinate things. This emotion of infinite
perfection is the _materia prima -- rudis indigestaque moles --_ out
of which attention, inspiration, and art can bring forth an infinity of
particular perfections. Every aesthetic success, whether in
contemplation or production, is the birth of one of these
possibilities with which the sense of infinite perfection is pregnant.
A work of art or an act of observation which remains indeterminate
is, therefore, a failure, however much it may stir our emotion. It is
a failure for two reasons. In the first place this emotion is seldom
wholly pleasant; it is disquieting and perplexing; it brings a desire
rather than a satisfaction. And in the second place, the emotion, not
being embodied, fails to constitute the beauty of anything; and
what we have is merely a sentiment, a consciousness that values
are or might be there, but a failure to extricate those values, or to
make them explicit and recognizable in an appropriate object.

These gropings after beauty have their worth as signs of aesthetic
vitality and intimations of future possible accomplishment; but in
themselves they are abortive, and mark the impotence of the
imagination. Sentimentalism in the observer and romanticism in
the artist are examples of this aesthetic incapacity. Whenever
beauty is really seen and loved, it has a definite embodiment: the
eye has precision, the work has style, and the object has perfection.
The kind of perfection may indeed be new; and if the discovery of
new perfections is to be called romanticism, then romanticism is