HOMELINESS OF NATURE. 



IT seems a part of the benevolent plan of Nature to 

 adorn her works, in general, with great frugality, and 

 homeliness is accordingly the prevailing character of her 

 scenery. It is, indeed, necessary that whatever is com- 

 mon should be so unattractive as not to deaden OUT 

 susceptibility to agreeable sensations when we behold 

 scenes of actual beauty. Nature uses it, therefore, only 

 as a luxury ; for occasional and sparing adornment, some- 

 times a little while in profusion, but never making it a 

 lasting feature of any prominent objects. Her ordinary 

 aspects are agreeable, as colorless light to the eye and 

 pure water to the taste, but the one is not sweet and 

 the other not beautiful. She has provided a comfort- 

 able state of being for our usual condition ; and does not 

 by her ordinary phases keep the mind or the senses in a 

 state of excitement. She takes care that our sensitive- 

 ness to the influence of beauty shall be preserved in a 

 healthy state by the general rudeness and sobriety of 

 the landscape. 



It is not denied that these homely objects may possess 

 a kind of relative beauty, coming from our idea of their 

 adaptedness to our pleasures and from pleasant associa- 

 tions. Many an ugly scene on the face of the earth may 

 seem beautiful from its power of awakening the pleasures 

 of memory. So keen is this sentiment, that we often 

 with difficulty distinguish homely scenes and objects thus 

 consecrated to our affections from such as are intrinsically 

 beautiful I rank under the head of intrinsic beauty those 



