"Laying out grounds, as it is called, may be considered as a
liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting; its object
ought to be to move the affections under the control of good
sense; and surely the affections of those who have the deepest
perception of the beauty of Nature,--who have the most valuable
feelings, that is the most permanent, the most independent, the
most ennobling, connected with Nature and human life. No
liberal art aims merely at the gratification of an individual or a
class; the painter or poet is degraded in proportion as he does
so. The true servants of the arts pay homage to the human
kind as impersonated in unwarped and enlightened minds.
If this be so when we are merely putting together words or
colours, how much more ought the feeling to prevail when
we are in the midst of the realities of things; of the beauty
and harmony, of the joy and happiness, of loving creatures;
of men and children, of birds and beasts, of hills and streams,
and trees and flowers; with the changes of night and day, evening
and morning, summer and winter; and all their unwearied
actions and energies, as benign in the spirit that animates them
as they are beautiful and grand in that form of clothing which
is given to them for the delight of our senses! What then
shall we say of many great mansions, with their unqualified
expulsion of human creatures from their neighbourhood,
happy or not; houses which do what is fabled of the upas
tree--breathe out death and desolation! For my part, strip
my neighbourhood of human beings, and I should think it
one of the greatest privations I could undergo.
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