n
its influence for six months over the weak minds which alone can feel
it; and the monotony of existence becomes to them exactly what it would
have been had they never inflicted a pang upon the unfortunate
spectators, whose unaccustomed eyes shrink daily from the impression to
which they have not been rendered callous by custom, or lenient by false
taste.

173. If these considerations are just when they allude only to buildings
in the abstract, how much more when referring to them as materials of
composition, materials of infinite power, to adorn or destroy the
loveliness of the earth. The nobler scenery of that earth is the
inheritance of all her inhabitants: it is not merely for the few to whom
it temporarily belongs, to feed from like swine, or to stable upon like
horses, but it has been appointed to be the school of the minds which
are kingly among their fellows, to excite the highest energies of
humanity, to furnish strength to the lordliest intellect, and food for
the holiest emotions of the human soul. The presence of life is, indeed,
necessary to its beauty, but of life congenial with its character; and
that life is not congenial which thrusts presumptuously forward, amidst
the calmness of the universe, the confusion of its own petty interests
and groveling imaginations, and stands up with the insolence of a
moment, amid the majesty of all time, to build baby fortifications upon
the bones of the world, or to sweep the copse from the corrie, and the
shadow from the shore, that fools may risk, and gamblers gather, the
spoil of a thousand summers.

174. It should therefore be remembered by every proprietor of land in
hill country, that his possessions are the means of a peculiar
education, otherwise unattainable, to the artists, and in some degree to
the literary men, of his country; that, even in this limited point of
view, they are a national possession, but much more so when it is
remembered how many thousands are perpetually receiving from them, not
merely a transitory pleasure, but such thrilling perpetuity of pure
emotion, such lofty subject for scientific speculation, and such deep
lessons of natural religion, as only the work of a Deity can impress,
and only the spirit of an immortal can feel: they should remember that
the slightest deformity, the most contemptible excrescence, can injure
the effect of the noblest natural scenery, as a note of discord can
annihilate the expression of the purest harmony;