I 7 2 LOVE S MEINIE. 



volume of * Modern Painters,' premising, how- 

 ever, some few necessary words. 



130. I intended never to have reprinted the 

 second volume of * Modern Painters ' ; first, 

 because it is written in affected imitation of 

 Hooker, and not in my own proper style ; 

 and, secondly, yet chiefly, because I did not 

 think the analytic study of which it mainly 

 consists, in the least likely to be intelligible to 

 the general student, or, therefore, profitable to 

 him. But I find now that the ' general student ' 

 has plunged himself into such abysses, not of 

 analytic, but of dissolytic, — dialytic — or even 

 diarrhoeic — lies, belonging to the sooty and 

 sensual elements of his London and Paris life, 

 that, however imperfectly or dimly done, the 

 higher analysis of that early work of mine 

 ought at least to be put within his reach ; and 

 the fact, somehow, enforced upon him, that there 

 were people before lie lived, who knew what 

 'aesthesis ' meant, though they did not think that 

 pigs' flavouring of pigs'-wash was ennobled by 

 giving it that Greek name : and that there were 

 also people before his time who knew what vital 

 beauty meant, though they did not seek it either 

 in the model-room, or the Pare aux Cerfs. 



