this mingling of universal and peculiar
principles; for by these such difference is secured in the feelings as
shall make fellowship itself more delightful, by its inter-communicate
character, and such variety of feeling also in each of us separately as
shall make us capable of enjoying scenes of different kinds and orders,
instead of morbidly seeking for some perfect epitome of the beautiful in
one; and also that deadening by custom of theoretic impressions to which
I have above alluded, is counterbalanced by the pleasantness of acquired
association; and the loss of the intense feeling of the youth, which
"had no need of a remoter charm, by thought supplied, or any interest,
unborrowed from the eye," is replaced by the gladness of conscience, and
the vigor of the reflecting and imaginative faculties, as they take
their wide and aged grasp of the great relations between the earth and
its dead people.

Sec. 12. And what caution it renders necessary in the examination of them.

In proportion therefore to the value, constancy, and efficiency of this
influence, we must be modest and cautious in the pronouncing of positive
opinions on the subject of beauty. For every one of us has peculiar
sources of enjoyment necessarily opened to him in certain scenes and
things, sources which are sealed to others, and we must be wary on the
one hand, of confounding these in ourselves with ultimate conclusions of
taste, and so forcing them upon all as authoritative, and on the other
of supposing that the enjoyments of others which we cannot share are
shallow or unwarrantable, because incommunicable. I fear, for instance,
that in the former portion of this work I may have attributed too much
community and authority to certain affections of my own for scenery
inducing emotions of wild, impetuous, and enthusiastic characters, and
too little to those which I perceive in others for things peaceful,
humble, meditative, and solemn. So also between youth and age there will
be found differences of seeking, which are not wrong, nor of false
choice in either, but of different temperament, the youth sympathizing
more with the gladness, fulness, and magnificence of things, and the
gray hairs with their completion, sufficiency and repose. And so,
neither condemning the delights of others, nor altogether distrustful of
our own, we must advance, as we live on, from what is brilliant to what
is pure, and from what is promised to what is fulfilled, and fr