Symmetry is necessary to the _dignity_ of every form. Orderly balance and arrangement are highly essential to the more perfect operation of the earnest and solemn qualities of the beautiful, being heavenly in their nature, and contrary to the violence and disorganization of sin. Minds which have been subjected to high moral influence generally delight in symmetry: witness the harmonious lines of Milton, and the works of the great religious painters. Where there is no symmetry, the effects of violence and passion are increased. Many works derive power from the want of it, but lose in proportion in the divine quality of beauty. Want of moderation, extravagance, bombastic straining for effect, are destructive of beauty, whether in color, form, motion, language, or thought;--in color, they would be called glaring; in form, inelegant; in motion, ungraceful; in language, coarse; in thought, undisciplined; in all, unchastened: these qualities are always painful, because the signs of disobedient and irregular operation. In color, for example, it is not red, but rose color, which is the most beautiful; neither is it the brightest green, but such gray green as we see in the distant sky, in the clefts of the glacier, in the chrysophrase and sea foam; not but that the expression of feeling should be deep and full, but that to arrive at that _passion of the soul_ excited by the beautiful, there should be a solemn moderation in such fulness, a reference to the high harmonies by which humanity is governed, and an obedience to which is its glory. The following short quotations serve to illustrate this point: 'And now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek; it seemed she was a queen Over her passion, which, most rebel-like, Sought to be king o'er her.' 'I found her on the floor In all the storm of grief, yet beautiful; Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate, That were the world on fire, they might have drowned The wrath of heaven, and quenched the mighty ruin.' Common writers are apt to forget that exaggerated expressions chill our sympathies; that passion becomes ignoble when entertained for ignoble objects; that when violent and unnatural, it is destructive of dignity. In the exaggeration of its outward signs, Passion is not exalted, but its reality is evaporized. 'The fire which mounts the liquor till it runs o'er, In _seeming_ to augment it, _wastes_ it.' The use and value of passion is not as a subject of contemplation in itself, but as it breaks up the fountains of the great deep of the heart, or displays its might and ribbed majesty, as the stability of mountains is best seen with the restless mist quivering about them, and the changeful clouds floating above them. We have thus naturally arrived at the fact that Truth, another of the Divine Attributes, must make part of all art that would interest humanity; that the soul rejects violence, or the falsehood of exaggerated description.