al De-Composition,--this is perhaps not so enviable. And if we
think of it, most human originality is apt to be of that kind. Goodness
is one, and immortal; it may be received and communicated--not
originated: but Evil is various and recurrent, and may be misbegotten in
endlessly surprising ways.

76. But, that we may know better in what this originality consists, we
find that our author, after expatiating on the vast area of the
Pantheon, "illuminated solely by the small circular opening in the dome
above," and on other similar conditions of luminous contraction, tells
us that "to Rembrandt belongs the glory of having first embodied in Art,
and perpetuated, these rare and beautiful effects of nature." Such
effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely.
The sky, with the sun in it, does not usually give the impression of
being dimly lighted through a circular hole; but you may observe a very
similar effect any day in your coal-cellar. The light is not
Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on those
of a drain. Color is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but
is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without
denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression which Mr. Hazlitt,
perhaps too enthusiastically, describes as attainable in a background of
Rembrandt's--"You stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another"--I
cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as
Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of
his darkness, and the dullness of his light. Glorious, or inglorious,
the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim
of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by
sunlight. It was the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he
could see--by rushlight.

77. By rushlight, observe: material and spiritual. As the sun for the
outer world; so in the inner world of man, that which "[Greek: ereuna
tameua koilias]"[73]--"the candle of God, searching the inmost parts."
If that light within become but a more active kind of darkness;--if,
abdicating the measuring reed of modesty for scepter, and ceasing to
measure with it, we dip it in such unctuous and inflammable refuse as we
can find, and make our soul's light into a _tallow_ candle, and
thenceforward take our guttering, sputtering, ill-smelling illumination
about with us, holding it out in fetid fingers