Perseverance in
rightness of human conduct, renders, after a certain number of
generations, human art possible; every sin clouds it, be it ever so
little a one; and persistent vicious living and following of pleasure
render, after a certain number of generations, all art impossible. Men
are deceived by the long-suffering of the laws of nature; and mistake,
in a nation, the reward of the virtue of its sires for the issue of
its own sins. The time of their visitation will come, and that
inevitably; for, it is always true, that if the fathers have eaten sour
grapes, the children's teeth are set on edge.[201] And for the
individual, as soon as you have learned to read, you may, as I have
said, know him to the heart's core, through his art. Let his art-gift
be never so great, and cultivated to the height by the schools of a
great race of men; and it is still but a tapestry thrown over his own
being and inner soul; and the bearing of it will show, infallibly,
whether it hangs on a man, or on a skeleton. If you are dim-eyed, you
may not see the difference in the fall of the folds at first, but
learn how to look, and the folds themselves will become transparent,
and you shall see through them the death's shape, or the divine one,
making the tissue above it as a cloud of light, or as a winding-sheet.
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