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he begged them to explain to him how 

 it happened, that many of those things 

 which he himself, and most others he be- 

 lieved, would call ugly, they called beau- 

 tiful, and picturesque — a word, which those 

 who were conversant in painting, might 

 perhaps use in a more precise, or a more 

 extended sense, than was done in common 

 discourse, or writing. Mr. Howard told 

 him that the picturesque, was merely 

 that kind of beauty which belongs exclu- 

 sively to the sense of vision, or to the ima- 

 gination guided by that sense. " Then," 

 said Mr. Seymour, " as far as visible ob- 

 jects are concerned, what is picturesque is 

 beautiful,' and vice versa; in short, they 

 are two words for the same idea. I do not, 

 however, entirely comprehend the meaning 

 of exclusively, to the sense of vision/' 



" It must always be remembered," an- 

 swered the other, " in inquiries of this 

 kind, that the eye, unassisted, perceives 

 nothing but light variously graduated and 

 modified : black objects are those which 

 totally absorb it ; and white, those which 



