eyes. But this, indeed, is far from being quite a common endowment, for the power of observation under correct ideal associations characterizes minds of the highest genius, either for experiment, description, or design. It is, however, on the play of imagination amidst many undefined objects that much of our pleasure depends; and on this principle the infinite diversity of forms and colours, interfering with each other, and yet harmonizing, tends to divert the soul from the visions of care, so apt to haunt the thoughtful, and, by withdrawing the attention from self, to fill it to overflowing with indefinite delights, by suggesting a thousand ideas of life, action, and happiness, with which all but the hopeless involuntarily sympathize. Hence the benefit to the mind of excursions amidst green fields, gardens, woods, hills, and dales, or by the great sea, with its living waves and vastness, sparkling with sunbeams. The God of Nature invites the dispirited to meet him amidst the beauty of his works, there to be taught, in gentle words, that Almighty wisdom has created endless variety, to suit the tastes of innumerable intelligences, and to prove to man that he is not lost, or left alone to grope his way through everlasting darkness, but everywhere to see evidences that his Maker has set his heart upon him, and would have him to learn from all nature's successive changes and inconceivable minutia working together to great and infinite ends, that the God of creation is the God of patience and hope.

Taste for beauty is, then, founded in physiology; at least, it is manifest that our sense of harmony in colour

and form, as well as in sound, is due to our physical constitution; of course meaning by this the adaptation of organized instruments to the innate faculties of our souls. All who have studied the function of sight, and the action of colour on the retina, are well aware that there exists a tendency in the nervous power subservient to vision, to take on complementary states of action. The three simple colours, blue, red, and yellow, being placed at the angles of an equilateral triangle, as in the annexed figure, we see at once what are the complementary colours, and that they result from a mixture of the rays of those primary colours which are next each other.

Here, then, we discover something of the secret cause of our pleasure or displeasure in certain combinations of colour. We find those hues are most pleasing to us in which the complementary and contrasting colours are so distributed as to prevent fatigue and confusion in

the eye. Hence painters speak of the harmony and disharmony of colours. Few of us trace our enjoyments to their cause, but yet we are accustomed to talk with some degree of freedom of the tastes of our friends and acquaintances; nor can we help observing that coarse minds are apt to betray themselves, not only by outre habits of action, and incongruous dress, as regards form, but also by glaring inconsistencies and outrages of good taste in the mixture of colours, with which they fancy they adorn themselves. Orange with blue in all its shades, lilac with yellow, red with green, every lady of taste knows harmonize well together, when neatly arranged; but if she wear a dress of one predominant colour, she will take care that it shall be subdued, and somewhat dull. The hideous combination of pure red with blue or yellow is only fit for national standards, and the regimentals of soldiers, to show that the harmony of truth is broken, and that we are ready to fight for the maintenance of discord and separation, rather than allow the harmonizing light, which is love, to reign over us. The rainbow in the cloud is the symbol of God's covenant with humanity; and vain will be our attempts at union, until we feel that variety is essential to harmony.

The practical deductions from the facts stated in this chapter are these ideas are formed by the thinking being which uses the senses, and this being has no right sense of either natural or moral beauty without the knowledge of truth.

CHAPTER XII.

THE COMPENSATING POWER OF THE MIND.

IF we doubt the value of pictures, let us ask the deaf man what he thinks of them; if we question the charms of music, we have only to look at "the blind fiddler." Undoubtedly the deaf and the blind respectively enjoy such objects as are appropriate to those senses which they possess, yet, nevertheless, it is probable that in order to a complete appreciation of music, the eye is useful, and the ear not without its value in a due estimation of painting, because both these organs of sense are constituted in relation to measured movements, and the harmony of action, as well as of mere sound and colour. To a man who has been blessed with the perfect use of both sight and hearing, and whose taste, both for visual and audible objects, has been properly cultivated, it is certain that melody awakens sentiments which those who have never seen can scarcely conceive; and an expressive and harmonious picture also is productive in the mind of such a person of a delight more exquisite than the born-deaf can apprehend. Milton could never have expected the ecstasies of harmony to have brought

all heaven before his eyes had he not been accustomed to the visions which pure music awakens; and the sight of a sunny picture, replete with living verdure, sparkling streams and happy beings, would lose half its power to rouse our sympathies had we never heard the diversified utterances of natural bliss. The perfect education of the eye, for the purpose of searching after objects to gratify the mental appetite, demands those intimations of nicety of feeling which can only be communicated by the voice while under the influence of such feeling; and the associations of living action and beauty are also essential to the fulfilment of all the purposes of harmony. But how cheering is it to observe that the deprivation of a sense, although it may not, as is generally imagined, lead, as a matter of course, to a finer perception through other senses, yet it does not certainly hinder, but rather promotes a fuller and pleasanter occupation of the mind through those senses which remain in use. Hence we find that deaf persons are observant of nice peculiarities in form; they busy themselves about visible minutiæ, take in the particulars of scenes, and are apt, when assisted as they deserve, to experience special delight in such employments as may call forth the exercise of intellect through the medium of the eye. Hence books are their best friends, and the endless volume of nature, full of beauty and illuminated by Heaven, seems to them sufficient to fill the soul with satisfaction for ever, because here they learn familiarity with the attributes of a power which they may trust as thoroughly as they can admire. They feel that the same intelligence which at