Page:Aesthetic Papers.djvu/162

152 long years—centuries indeed—after this fair flower shall have decayed, other flowers of the same race will appear in the same soil, and gladden other generations with hereditary beauty. Does not the vision haunt us yet? Has not Nature kept the mould unbroken, deeming it a pity that the idea should vanish from mortal sight for ever, after only once assuming earthly substance? Do we not recognize, in that fair woman s face, the model of features which still beam, at happy moments, on what was then the woodland pathway, but has long since grown into a busy street?

&quot;This is too ridiculous!—positively insufferable!&quot; mutters the same critic who had before expressed his disapprobation. &quot;Here is a pasteboard figure, such as a child would cut out of a card, with a pair of very dull scissors; and the fellow modestly requests us to see in it the prototype of hereditary beauty!&quot;

&quot;But, sir, &quot;you have not the proper point of view,&quot; remarks the showman. &quot;You sit altogether too near to get the best effect of my pictorial exhibition. Pray, oblige me by removing to this other bench; and, I venture to assure you, the proper light and shadow will transform the spectacle into quite another thing.&quot;

&quot;Pshaw!&quot; replies the critic: &quot;I want no other light and shade. I have already told you, that it is my business to see things just as they are.&quot;

&quot;I would suggest to the author of this ingenious exhibition,&quot; observes a gentlemanly person, who has shown signs of being much interested,—&quot;I would suggest, that Anna Gower, the first wife of Governor Endicott, and who came with him from England, left no posterity; and that, consequently, we cannot be indebted to that honorable lady for any specimens of feminine loveliness, now extant among us.&quot;

Having nothing to allege against this genealogical objection, the showman points again to the scene.

During this little interruption, you perceive that the Anglo-Saxon energy—as the phrase now goes—has been at work in the spectacle before us. So many chimneys now send up their smoke, that it begins to have the aspect of a village street; although every thing is so inartificial and inceptive,