an take part of its honor, nor usurp its throne, are its
strength, and fairness, and price, and goodness in the sight of God, to
be truly esteemed.

Sec. 11. Instance in the Soldanella and Ranunculus.

The first time that I saw the soldanella alpina, before spoken of, it
was growing, of magnificent size, on a sunny Alpine pasture, among
bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, associated with a profusion of
geum montanum, and ranunculus pyrenaeus. I noticed it only because new to
me, nor perceived any peculiar beauty in its cloven flower. Some days
after, I found it alone, among the rack of the higher clouds, and
howling of glacier winds, and, as I described it, piercing through an
edge of avalanche, which in its retiring had left the new ground brown
and lifeless, and as if burned by recent fire; the plant was poor and
feeble, and seemingly exhausted with its efforts, but it was then that I
comprehended its ideal character, and saw its noble function and order
of glory among the constellations of the earth.

The ranunculus glacialis might perhaps, by cultivation, be blanched from
its wan and corpse-like paleness to purer white, and won to more
branched and lofty development of its ragged leaves. But the ideal of
the plant is to be found only in the last, loose stones of the moraine,
alone there; wet with the cold, unkindly drip of the glacier water, and
trembling as the loose and steep dust to which it clings yields ever and
anon, and shudders and crumbles away from about its root.

Sec. 12. The beauty of repose and felicity, how consistent with such ideal.

And if it be asked how this conception of the utmost beauty of ideal
form is consistent with what we formerly argued respecting the
pleasantness of the appearance of felicity in the creature, let it be
observed, and forever held, that the right and true happiness of every
creature, is in this very discharge of its function, and in those
efforts by which its strength and inherent energy are developed: and
that the repose of which we also spoke as necessary to all beauty, is,
as was then stated, repose not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of
irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action,
the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of
duty accomplished and of victory won, and this repose and this felicity
can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the
waters of comfort; they perish only