Page:The Poetry of Architecture.djvu/242

230 mode of estimating excellence, is partly just and partly unjust. It is just, because we look to the motive rather than to the action; it is unjust, because we admire only those motives from which we feel that we ourselves act, or desire to act: yet, just or unjust, it is the mode which we always employ; and, therefore, when we wish to excite admiration of any given character, it is not enough to point to his actions or his writings, we must indicate as far as possible the nature of the ruling spirit which induced the deed, or pervaded the meditation. Now, this can never be done directly; neither inscription nor allegory is sufficient to inform the feelings of that which would most affect them; the latter, indeed, is a dangerous and doubtful expedient in all cases: but it can frequently be done indirectly, by pointing to the great first cause, to the nursing mother, so to speak, of the ruling spirit whose presence we would indicate; and by directing the attention of the spectator to those objects which were its guides and modifiers, which became to it the objects of one or both of the universal and only moving influences of life, hope or love; which excited and fostered within it that feeling which is the essence and glory of all noble minds, indefinable except in the words of one who felt it above many.

Now, it is almost always in the power of the monument