But the modern English mind has this much in common with that of the
Greek, that it intensely desires, in all things, the utmost completion
or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a noble character
in the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us to forget the
relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer the perfectness
of the lower nature to the imperfection of the higher; not considering
that as, judged by such a rule, all the brute animals would be
preferable to man, because more perfect in their functions and kind,
and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of man,
those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to those
which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and shortcomings. For
the finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness
of it; and it is a law of this universe, that the best things shall be
seldomest seen in their best form. The wild grass grows well and
strongly, one year with another; but the wheat is, according to the
greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer blight. And
therefore, while in all things that we see or do, we are to desire
perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the
meaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in
its mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered
majesty; not to prefer mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower
the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency
of success.
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