BEFORE BEAUTY 151 
follows as the inevitable result; and the final im- 
pression of health and finish which her works make 
upon the mind is owing as much to those things 
which are not technically called beautiful as to those 
which are. ‘The former give identity to the latter. 
The one is to the other what substance is to form, 
or bone to flesh. The beauty of nature includes all 
that is called beautiful, as its flower; and all that is 
not called beautiful, as its stalk and roots. 
Indeed, when I go to the woods or fields, or 
ascend to the hilltop, I do not seem to be gazing 
upon beauty at all, but to be breathing it like the air. 
I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in no hurry 
to look lest it be gone. I would not have the litter 
and débris removed, cr the banks trimmed, or the 
ground painted. What I enjoy is commensurate 
with the earth and sky itself. It clings to the 
rocks and trees; it is kindred to the roughness and 
savagery; it rises from every tangle and chasm; it 
perches on the dry oak-stubs with the hawks and 
buzzards; the crows shed it from their wings and 
weave it into their nests of coarse sticks; the fox 
barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path 
leads to its haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a 
participator in it. It is not an adornment; its roots 
strike to the centre of the earth. 
All true beauty in nature or in art is like the 
iridescent hue of mother-of-pearl, which is intrinsic 
and necessary, being the result of the arrangement 
of the particles, — the flowering of the mechanism of 
the shell; or like the beauty of health which comes 
