186 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



not. The marble is not improved : it has been 

 made to contribute to the enjoyment of man, it is 

 true ; but this is improving the condition of mar?, 

 not the condition of the marble. For, in the first 

 place, the marble itself is unchanged, except in 

 figure ; and it has been wrested from the security of 

 concealment in its quarry, and exposed to injuries 

 and accidents from which it would otherwise have 

 been exempt; its very existence as marble has been 

 rendered precarious ; a barrel of vinegar may be 

 spilled upon it, and so its very nature be changed, 

 and its identity destroyed. In the next place, 

 looking upon the whole quarry as one object, of 

 which the statue forms only a small part, and sup- 

 posing (as who shall dare to question it ?) that the 

 entire quarry was intended by nature to answer 

 some useful purpose in the general scheme, I ask, 

 Has not the capacity of the entire quarry, to fulfil 

 its allotted purpose, been diminished by the forcible 

 abstraction of a part of it ? If you fell a ma- 

 hogany-tree, in order that it may be wrought into 

 billiard-tables, and side-boards, and dining-tables, I 

 ask you again, have you committed no injury upon 

 that tree ? Have you abstracted nothing from the 

 beauty of that scene in which that tree made a 

 prominent object? Have you in no way interfered 



