In
fact, in every school there has been a spring, a summer, an autumn,
an "Indian Summer," and then winter; for as surely as the "Indian
Summer," (which is, after all, but an unhealthy flush produced by
destruction,) so surely does winter come. In the Arts, the winter has
been exaggerated action, conventionalism, gaudy colour, false
sentiment, voluptuousness, and poverty of invention: and, of all
these characters, that which has been the most infallible herald of
decease, voluptuousness, has been the most rapid and sure. Corruption
lieth under it; and every school, and indeed every individual, that
has pandered to this, and departed from the true spirit in which all
study should be conducted, sought to degrade and sensualize, instead
of chasten and render pure, the humanity it was instructed to
elevate. So has that school, and so have those individuals, lost
their own power and descended from their high seat, fallen from the
priest to the mere parasite, from the law-giver to the mere courtier.
If we have entered upon a new age, a new cycle of man, of which there
are many signs, let us have it unstained by this vice of sensuality
of mind. The English school has lately lost a great deal of this
character; why should we not be altogether free from it? Nothing can
degrade a man or a nation more than this meanness; why should we not
avoid it? Sensuality is a meanness repugnant to youth, and disgusting
in age: a degradation at all times.
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