468
Great is the province of beauty.—As we move about in Nature cunningly and cheerfully in order to discover and as it were surprise the beauty peculiar to each particular object; as we attempt, now in sunshine, now under a stormy sky, then again in the palest twilight, to see yonder part of the coast with its rocks, bays, olive- and pine-trees in that aspect in which it attains its perfection and consummation: so we ought also to move about among men as their discoverers and spies, meting out to them good and evil, so as to reveal their peculiar beauty which unfolds itself with some in the golden sunshine, with others in thunder-clouds, and with others again only in the evening twilight and under a rainy sky, Is it, then, forbidden to enjoy the evil man like some primitive landscape, which has its own bold lineaments and luminous effects, while we look upon the same man, as long as he behaves well and lawfully, as a misdrawing and caricature which offends our eye like a blot in nature ?—Yes, it is forbidden : as yet we have only been permitted to look for beauty in all that is morally good,—which accounts for our having found so little, and having had to look about for so much imaginary beauty without a backbone. As surely as the evil ones know numerous kinds of happiness, which the virtuous never drew of, so they also exhibit numerous kinds of beauty, and many as yet undiscovered.
