I suspect that system-makers, in general, are not of much
more use, each in his own domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old
women who tie cherries upon sticks, for the more convenient
portableness of the same. To cultivate well, and choose well, your
cherries, is of some importance; but if they can be had in their own
wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is a better
connection for them than any other; and, if they cannot, then, so that
they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of a practical disposition not
much difference whether he gets them by handfuls, or in beaded
symmetry on the exalting stick. I purpose, therefore, henceforward to
trouble myself little with sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters
with a view to convenient reference, rather than to any careful
division of subjects, and to follow out, in any by-ways that may open,
on right hand or left, whatever question it seems useful at any moment
to settle.
And, in the outset, I find myself met by one which I ought to have
touched upon before--one of especial interest in the present state of
the Arts. I have said that the art is greatest which includes the
greatest ideas; but I have not endeavoured to define the nature of
this greatness in the ideas themselves. We speak of great truths, of
great beauties, great thoughts.
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