tions--of nature and man, and the harmony and opposition of
light and shadow, set forth in the ponderous; _that_ is Architecture.

_Christian._ [_as he enters_] Forbear, Kalon! These I know for your
dear fiends, Kosmon and Sophon. The moment of discoursing with them
has at last arrived: May I profit by it! Kalon, fearful of checking
your current of thought, I stood without, and heard that which you
said: and, though I agree with you in all your definitions of poetry,
painting, sculpture, music, and architecture; yet certainly all
things in or of man, or the world, are not, however equally
beautiful, equally worthy of being used by the artist. Fine art
absolutely rejects all impurities of form; not less absolutely does
it reject all impurities of passion and expression. Everything
throughout a poem, picture, or statue, or in music, may be sensuously
beautiful; but nothing must be sensually so. Sins are only paid for
in virtues; thus, every sin found is a virtue lost--lost--not only to
the artist, but a cause of loss to others--to all who look upon what
he does. He should deem his art a sacred treasure, intrusted to him
for the common good; and over it he should build, of the most
precious materials, in the simplest, chastest, and truest
proportions, a temple fit for universal worship: instead of which, it
is too often the case that he raises above it an edifice of clay;
which, as mortal as his life, falls, burying both it and himself
under a heap of dirt. To preserve him from this corruption of his
art, let him erect for his guidance a standard awfully high above
himself. Let him think of Christ; and what he would not show to as
pure a nature as His, let him never be seduced to work on, or expose
to the world.

_Kosmon._ Oh, Kalon, whither do we go! Greek art is condemned, and
Satire hath got its death-stroke. The beautiful is not the beautiful
unless it is fettered to the moral; and Virtue rejects the physical
perfections, lest she should fall in love with herself, and sin and
cause sin.

_Christian._ Nay, Kosmon. Nothing pure,--nothing that is innocent,
chaste, unsensual,--whether Greek or satirical, is condemned: but
everything--every picture, poem, statue, or piece of music--which
elicits the sensual, viceful, and unholy desires of our nature--is,
and that utterly. The beautiful was created the true, morally as well
as physically; vice is a deformment of virtue,--not of form, to which
it is a parasitical addition