66 TOILERS IN 7 HE SEA. 



CHAPTER III. 



LATTICE WORKERS, OR POLYCYSTINA. 



IT has come to be a firm belief with some people, 

 and not without reason, that no natural object 

 is wholly devoid of beauty ; that, to put it in other 

 words, there is no natural object which is not to a 

 more or less number of intelligent, reasoning, and 

 reasonable beings possessed of beauty. There may 

 be cases, as for instance, with reptiles and toadstools, 

 that the number is very limited of those who recog- 

 nise beauty in what the great majority consider but 

 too horrible and disgusting. Take it for granted 

 that the admiring few may be very few indeed, still 

 they will be, after all, that few to which the objects 

 in question are best known, and known clear from all 

 prejudice or bias. Whether there is any analysis of 

 beauty which makes it to consist in fitness, or whether 

 it is capable of analysis at all, does not now belong 

 to us to inquire, since we are not about to plead 

 specially on behalf of any objects generally excluded 

 from the circle of the beautiful. 



