Ixiv A LETTER FROM MISS BEEMBK, 



Tou will underBtahd tMs easily from what I have just 

 stated, and when you think of him, and look on these,pages 

 where he has written down his individual mind; for if) 

 evet writer incarnated his very nature in his work, truly 

 and entirely, it was done hy A. J. Downing. And df his 

 words and works haive won authority all cfver the United' 

 States, wherever the mind of the people has risen to -the 

 sphere of intelligence and beauty ; if under the snowy roofs 

 of Concord in the-Pil^rim State, as' under the orange ^nd 

 oak groves of South Carolina, I heard the same words— 

 " Mr. Downing has done much for this cotmtry 5" if even 

 in other Countries I hear the same appreciation of his 

 works, and not a single contradiction ; it is that his pequliar 

 nature and tS&ent were so one and whole, so in one gush 

 ♦out of the hand of the Creator, that he won authority and 

 faith by the force of those primeval laws to Vhiph we 

 bow by a divine necessity asVe recognize in them t\e mark 

 of divine truth. 



Grod had given to our friend to understand the true 

 beauty; Christianity had elevatefl the moral standard of 

 his mind ; thfe spirit of the New World had breathed on him 

 its enlarging influence ; and so he became a ji£dge> of beau- 

 ty in a new sense. The beauty that he saw, that inspired 

 him, was no more the Venus Anadyomene of tl* heathen 

 world stOl living on through all ages, even in the Christian , 

 one, mingling the false with the true and carrying abomi- 

 nations under her golden mantle. It was the Venus Ura- 

 nia, radiant with the pure glory of the Virgin, mother of 

 divinity on earth. The beauty that inspired him was in 

 accordance with all that was true and good, nor would he 

 ever see the first severed from the two others. ' It was the 

 beauty at home in tJie' Kingdom of God. ■ ' 



In Mr. Downing's hom§ on the Hudson. I was impressed 



