Even a high dome,
and the expansive interior of a cathedral, have a sensible effect
on manners. I have heard that stiff people lose something of their
awkwardness under high ceilings and in spacious halls. I think sculpture
and painting have an effect to teach us manners and abolish hurry.
But, over all, culture must reinforce from higher influx the empirical
skills of eloquence, or of politics, or of trade and the useful arts.
There is a certain loftiness of thought and power to marshal and
adjust particulars, which can come only from an insight of their whole
connection. The orator who has once seen things in their divine order
will never quite lose sight of this, and will come to affairs as from a
higher ground, and, though he will say nothing of philosophy, he will
have a certain mastery in dealing with them, and an incapableness of
being dazzled or frighted, which will distinguish his handling from that
of attorneys and factors. A man who stands on a good footing with the
heads of parties at Washington reads the rumors of the newspapers and
the guesses of provincial politicians with a key to the right and
wrong in each statement, and sees well enough where all this will end.
Archimedes will look through your Connecticut machine at a glance, and
judge of its fitness. And much more, a wise man who knows not only what
Plato, but what Saint John can show him, can easily raise the affair
he deals with to a certain majesty.
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