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a low spiritual state. Some men and some races, the French, for instance, seem to lead thus several distinct lives. Other races, and particularly men of deep sentiment, carry the whole self into every hour and every pursuit.

Virtue sooner or later finds its level throughout the character. When one set of virtues remains long more vigorous than others in a character, we may be sure it is not from any deliberate conscious preference of them. Nothing but effort for virtues which are not, can keep alive virtues which are. This is particularly true of what may be called native virtues. They wither away at the root and perish, if the soil is not turned up for other fruits.

But though one virtue cannot atone for the absence of another, one exercise of a virtue may take the place of another exercise of the same virtue, as to direct influence on the character. The outward consequences vary as the objects are different in the two cases. Thus love keeps the heart warm, whether heaped on one helpless sufferer, or divided among a crowd. But the results as to happiness and minor points of character differ.

Virtue which swells and fills every inlet along the shore is far better than that which rises in spouting-horns. Great virtues do not always imply great virtue.

Mr. Peabody says the division of labor is fatal in morals though serviceable in affairs.

This is the law of moral and of mental gain. The simple rise as by specific levity, not into a particular virtue, but into the region of all the virtues. They are in the spirit which contains them all. Emerson.

Vices are seldom single; but virtues go ever in troops: they go so thick, that sometimes some are hid in the crowd; which yet are, but appear not. Bishop Hall.

I understand two things by the word 'tone';—first, the exact relief and relation of objects against and to each other, in substance and darkness, as they are nearer or more distant, and the perfect relation of the shades of all of them to the chief light of the picture, whether that be sky, water or any thing else. Secondly, the exact relation of the colors of the shadows to the colors of the lights, so that they may be at once felt to be merely different degrees of the same light; and the accurate relation among the illuminated parts themselves, with respect to the degree in which they are influenced by the color of the light itself, whether warm or cold; so that the whole of the picture may be felt to be in one climate, under one kind of light, and in one kind of atmosphere. The want of tone in pictures is caused by objects looking bright in their own positive hue, and not by illumination, and by the consequent want of sensation of the raising of their hues by light.

The first of these meanings of the word 'tone' is liable to be confounded with what is called aerial perspective.'

But aerial perspective is the expression of space by any means whatsoever, sharpness of edge, vividness of color, &c., assisted by greater pitch of shadow, and requires only that objects should be detached from each other, by degrees of intensity in proportion to their distance, without requiring that the difference between the farthest and nearest should be in positive quantity the same that nature has put. But what I have called 'tone' requires that there should be the same sum of difference, as well as the same division of differences. Ruskin.

Perspective is not enough in our lives; we must have tone also. Some people have only one, others the other; but both are needed. We must not only have the things which pertain to earth rightly graduated, but these must bear an infinitely small proportion to eternal things.

One of the most important means of obtaining unity between things which otherwise must have remained distinct in similarity is apparent proportion, which takes place between quantities for the sake of connection only, without any ultimate object or causal necessity. And as this may consist with every other kind of unity, and persist when every other means of it fails, it may be considered as lying at the root of most of our impressions of the beautiful. There is no sense of rightness or wrongness connected with it, no sense of utility, propriety, or expediency. These ideas enter only where the proportion of quantities has reference to some function to be performed by them.

In all perfectly beautiful objects, there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance obtained. In things in which perfect symmetry is from their nature impossible or improper, a balance must be at least in some measure expressed before they can be held with pleasure. The only error against which it is necessary to guard the reader with respect to symmetry, is the confounding it with proportion. Symmetry is the opposition of equal quantities to each other. Proportion the connection of unequal quantities with each other. The property of a tree in sending out equal boughs on opposite sides is symmetrical; its sending out shorter and smaller ones towards the top, proportional. In the human face its balance of opposite sides is symmetry; its division upwards, proportion. John Ruskin.

Thus the thought and feeling, should not be disportioned to each other and each should have a certain symmetry in its manifestation.

Might but the sense of moral evil be as strong in me as is my delight in external beauty! Dr. Arnold.

The sense of proportion, if I may so express it, seems more than any other faculty of the soul to depend upon discipline. The development of this sense in life and action is consistency; but, where it is wanting, a whole mass of contradictions appears to be the necessary result. The Story of a Family.

The circumstances in which certain substances are brought together, decide whether they shall become otto of rose or street gas; so the influences to which a man is born may make in the traits of his character, a difference of degree which will almost amount to a difference of kind for the whole character.

Gases combine only in their nascent state, and perhaps on the right treatment of a feeling when first shown, the harmony and close union of the different elements of character depend.

Again, the presence of small quantities of certain substances in the blood and in the sea, makes the blood and the sea what they are. Thus the presence of one atom of Faith or Love controls the combinations of all faculties present.

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In the early ages of Christianity, there was little care taken to analyze character. One momentous question was heard over the whole world, Dost thou believe in the Lord with all thine heart? There was but one division among men, the great unatoneable division between the disciple and the adversary. The love of Christ was all and in all; and in proportion to the nearness of their memory of His person and teaching, men understood the infinity of the requirements of the moral law, and the manner in which alone it could be fulfilled. In their pure, early, and practical piety, the early Christians saw that there was no need for codes of morality or systems of metaphysics. Their virtue comprehended every thing,

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