They are, as their name implies, of an elementary
character, suitable for beginners only, and he who has so little mastered
them as to have occasion to refer to them consciously, is out of place in
the society of well-educated people. The truly scientific invariably
hate him, and, for the most part, the more profoundly in proportion to
the unconsciousness with which they do so.
If the reader hesitates, let him go down into the streets and look in the
shop-windows at the photographs of eminent men, whether literary,
artistic, or scientific, and note the work which the consciousness of
knowledge has wrought on nine out of every ten of them; then let him go
to the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art, the truest preachers of the
truest gospel of grace; let him look at the Venus of Milo, the
Discobolus, the St. George of Donatello. If it had pleased these people
to wish to study, there was no lack of brains to do it with; but imagine
"what a deal of scorn" would "look beautiful in the contempt and anger"
of the Venus of Milo's lip if it were suggested to her that she should
learn to read. Which, think you, knows most, the Theseus, or any modern
professor taken at random? True, learning must have a great share in the
advancement of beauty, inasmuch as beauty is but knowledge perfected and
incarnate--but with the pioneers it is _sic vos non vobis_; the grace is
not for them, but for those who come after.
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