"A low origin this for such a society, and the fruits will be without
flavor. Art will not submit to be so lowered," will say some travelled
dilettante, who, with book in hand, has looked by rote on the wonders
of the Louvre and the Vatican; but the Creator of the universe teaches
a different lesson from this observer. Not the rare lightning merely,
but the daily sunlight, too; not merely the distant star-studded
canopy of the earth, but also our near earth itself, has He made
beautiful. He surrounds us with beauty; He envelops us in beauty.
Beauty is spread out on the familiar grass, glows in the daily flower,
glistens in the dew, waves in the commonest leafy branch. All about
us, in infinite variety, beauty is lavished by God in sights
and sounds, and odors. Now, in using the countless and multifarious
substances that are put within our reach, to be by our ingenuity and
contrivance wrought into materials for our protection and comfort, and
pleasure, it becomes us to--it is part of his design that we
shall--follow the divine example, so that in all our handiwork, as in
his, there shall be beauty, so much as the nature of each product is
susceptible of.
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