an the ocean's, making
In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,
So like, we almost deem it permanent,
So fleeting, we can scarcely call it aught
Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently
Scattered along the eternal vault; and yet
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,
And blends itself into the soul, until
Sunset and sunrise form the haunted epoch
Of sorrow and of love; which they who mark not
Know not the realm where these twin genii
(Who chasten and who purify our hearts,
So that we would not change their sweet rebukes
For all the boisterous joys that ever shook
The air with clamor) build the palaces
Where their fond votaries repose and breathe
Briefly;--but in that brief cool calm inhale
Enough of heaven to enable them to bear
The rest of common, heavy, human hours,
And dream them through in placid sufferance.'

BYRON.

No work of art in which this expression of infinity is possible, can be
very elevated without it; and in proportion to its presence it will
exalt and render impressive themes in themselves tame and trivial. If we
will but think of it, it is very strange in how many unexpected places
we shall find it lurking: for example, the painter of portraits is
unhappy without his conventional _white_ stroke under the sleeve or
beside the armchair; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird
unless he can throw a window open or set a door ajar; the landscapist
dare not lose himself in the forest without a gleam of light under its
farthest branches, nor ventures out in the rain unless he may somewhere
pierce to a better promise in the distance, or cling to some closing gap
of variable blue above--escape from the finite--hope--infinity--by
whatever conventionalism sought--the _desire_ is the same in all.

Our ideas of beauty are intuitive, and it is only in a dim way that we
read the types, the powers for whose _immediate_ cognition we lost in
the fall; but it is certain that a _curve_ of any kind is far more
agreeable to us than a right line; may not the reason of this fact be:
every curve divides itself infinitely by its changes of direction?

What curvature is to lines, gradation is to shade and color; it is their
infinity--dividing them into an infinite number of degrees.

Such examples might be indefinitely multiplied, but having placed the
_key_ in the hands of the reader, we leave him to unlock the treasure
hou