d of the second volume of 'Modern Painters'!

L. My dear, do you think any teacher could be worth your listening to,
or anybody else's listening to, who had learned nothing, and altered his
mind in nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and forty? But that
second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great
advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is
the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle
pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you
also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and
judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the
virtues of what you love: else you might come to love both alike; or
even the weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking
Overbeck and Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been
leaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things, in
to-night's talk; and you are always to remember, children, that I do not
deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages resulting, in
certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the other
practices of saints and anchorites. The evidence respecting them has
never yet been honestly collected, much less dispassionately examined:
but assuredly, there is in that direction a probability, and more than a
probability, of dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the
practice of an active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of
attaining a higher religious position, which induces us to encounter,
for its exalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I
said, founded more on pride than piety; and those who, in modest
usefulness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest place in
the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the least likely to
receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable, 'Friend, go up
higher.'

LECTURE VIII.

_CRYSTAL CAPRICE._

_Formal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some practical examination of
minerals._

L. We have seen enough, children, though very little of what might be
seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by visible
opposition, or contest among elements; structures of which the variety,
however great, need not surprise us: for we quarrel, ourselves, for many
and slight causes;--much more, one should think, may crystals, who can
only feel the antagonism, not argue about it.