of
particles, and not to our love of light, that we look upon a piece of
rock crystal as purer than a piece of marble, and on the marble as purer
than a piece of chalk. And let it be observed also that the most lovely
objects in nature are only partially transparent. I suppose the utmost
possible sense of beauty is conveyed by a feebly translucent, smooth,
but not lustrous surface of white, and pale warm red, subdued by the
most pure and delicate grays, as in the finer portions of the human
frame; in wreaths of snow, and in white plumage under rose light,[26] so
Viola of Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Homer of Atrides wounded.[27] And
I think that transparency and lustre, both beautiful in themselves, are
incompatible with the highest beauty because they destroy form, on the
full perception of which more of the divinely character of the object
depends than upon its color. Hence, in the beauty of snow and of flesh,
so much translucency is allowed as is consistent with the full
explanation of the forms, while we are suffered to receive more intense
impressions of light and transparency from other objects which,
nevertheless, owing to their necessarily unperceived form, are not
perfectly nor affectingly beautiful. A fair forehead outshines its
diamond diadem. The sparkle of the cascade withdraws not our eyes from
the snowy summits in their evening silence.

Sec. 6. Purity only metaphorically a type of sinlessness.

It may seem strange to many readers that I have not spoken of purity in
that sense in which it is most frequently used, as a type of
sinlessness. I do not deny that the frequent metaphorical use of it in
Scripture may have and ought to have much influence on the sympathies
with which we regard it, and that probably the immediate agreeableness
of it to most minds arises far more from this source than from that to
which I have chosen to attribute it. But, in the first place, if it be
indeed in the signs of Divine and not of human attributes that beauty
consists, I see not how the idea of sin can be formed with respect to
the Deity, for it is an idea of a relation borne by us to Him, and not
in any way to be attached to his abstract nature. And if the idea of sin
is incapable of being formed with respect to Him, so also is its
negative, for we cannot form an idea of negation, where we cannot form
an idea of presence. If for instance one could conceive of taste or
flavor in a proposition of Euclid, so also might we