It has been the
happy combination of art and science which has trained us to perceive the
beauty which surrounds us.
Art helps us to see, and "hundreds of people can talk for one who can
think; but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is
poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.... Remembering always that
there are two characters in which all greatness of Art consists--first,
the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those
facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look
upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus
great Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for as
the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world
about him, first sees nothing clearly, looks nothing fairly in the face,
and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent and
unescapable force of the things that he would not foresee and could not
understand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in
the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in
unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human
intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent in consummating
their good and restraining their evil.
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