It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that
is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or
can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. The
foxglove blossom,--a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in
full bloom,--is a type of the life of this world. And in all things
that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which are
not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly
the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no
branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change;
and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion,
to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and
more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed,
that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human
judgment, Mercy.
Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecture nor any
other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect; and let us
be prepared for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern
clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first
cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of
perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for
greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity.
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