A PITCH-PINE MEDITATION. 183 



palace, and a tumble-down wall better than 

 the costliest and stanchest of new-laid ma- 

 sonry. It is hard to know what to think 

 of an inconsistency like this. Why should 

 taste and principle be thus opposed to each 

 other, as if the same man were half Philis- 

 tine, half Bohemian ? Can this strong aes- 

 thetic preference for imperfection be based 

 upon some permanent, universal law, or is 

 it only a passing whim, the fashion of an 

 hour? 



Whatever we may say of such a prob- 

 lem, and where one knows nothing, it is 

 perhaps wisest to say nothing, we may 

 surely count it an occasion for thankfulness 

 that a thing so common as imperfection 

 should have at least its favorable side. 

 Music would soon become tame, if not in- 

 tolerable, without here and there a discord ; 

 and who knows how stupid life itself might 

 prove without some slight admixture of 

 evil? From my study- windows I can see 

 sundry of the newest and most commodious 

 mansions in town ; but I more often look, 

 not at them, but at a certain dilapidated 

 old house, blackening for want of paint, 

 and fast falling into decay, but with one 



