It is not easy to find the word descriptive of that hold which the external can exercise in favourable conditions through the senses upon man’s spirit. There might be a successful plea that this influence is more real than is supposed, necessary to men if human dignity is to be upheld; such is not here advanced; but rather one or two practical questions, modestly constructed, are submitted with deference, as : Is not the vague, unnamed, very real relation between man and his inanimate correspondent subject to all the varieties and discriminations allowed to ‘taste’? Again, in discourse of this matter the word beauty must sooner or later be used; very well, but man is beautiful, though this is only a memory. Regrettez vous le temps oh le ciel sur la terre marchait et respirait dans un peuple de dieux? The little we can say at present is : man might harmonize with the created beauty external to himself; but the fact is that his presence is seldom tolerable and yery rarely acceptable. Shrinking, he has lost a function; he is reduced to a spectator, and can no longer be wedded to bosquet and glade except in spirit, Walt Whitman’s endeavours and other’s non-obstant. It is by chance that man and his are not feyesorrow, distraction, hindrance, scandal, discord among the elements where he might have wonted place.

That the scandalgiver is man sometimes seems to justify impatience and abandonment of the enterprise; but to close our eyes is to relinquish our only true external inheritance, and that is the last sacrifice. Remains for the beholder to accommodate his desires to facts, accept inevitable dilution and look with discretion.