and seeing that these desires are indeed so unfailing in us that they have escaped not the reasoners of any time, but were held divine of old, and in even heathen countries,[30] it cannot be but that there is in these visionary pleasures, lightly as we now regard them, cause for thankfulness, ground for hope, anchor for faith, more than in all the other manifold gifts and guidances, wherewith God crowns the years, and hedges the paths of men. FOOTNOTES [30] [Greek: He de teleia eudaimonia theoretike tis eotin henergeia. * * tois men gar theois apas ho bios makarios, tois d anthropois, eph hoson homoioma ti tes toiantes henergeias huparchei. ton d hallon zoon ouden eudaimonei. hepeide oudame koinonei theorias.]--Arist. Eth. Lib. 10th. The concluding book of the Ethics should be carefully read. It is all most valuable. CHAPTER XII. OF VITAL BEAUTY. FIRST, AS RELATIVE. Sec. 1. Transition from typical to vital Beauty. I proceed more particularly to examine the nature of that second kind of beauty of which I spoke in the third chapter, as consisting in "the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function in living things." I have already noticed the example of very pure and high typical beauty which is to be found in the lines and gradations of unsullied snow: if, passing to the edge of a sheet of it, upon the lower Alps, early in May, we find, as we are nearly sure to find, two or three little round openings pierced in it, and through these emergent, a slender, pensive, fragile flower[31] whose small dark, purple-fringed bell hangs down and shudders over the icy cleft that it has cloven, as if partly wondering at its own recent grave, and partly dying of very fatigue after its hard won victory; we shall be, or we ought to be, moved by a totally different impression of loveliness from that which we receive among the dead ice and the idle clouds. There is now uttered to us a call for sympathy, now offered to us an image of moral purpose and achievement, which, however unconscious or senseless the creature may indeed be that so seems to call, cannot be heard without affection, nor contemplated without worship, by any of us whose heart is rightly tuned, or whose mind is clearly and surely sighted.