object can be otherwise to the mind than a mere _occasion_; its
inward product, or mental effect, being from another Power. The proper
view therefore is, not that such alliance can ever degrade the higher
agent, but that its more humble and material _assimilant_ is thus
elevated by it. So that nothing in nature should be counted mean,
which can thus be exalted; but rather be honored, since no object can
become so assimilated except by its predetermined correlation to our
better nature.

Neither is it the privilege of the exclusive few, the refined and
cultivated, to feel them deeply. If we look beyond ourselves, even to
the promiscuous multitude, the instance will be rare, if existing at
all, where some transient touch of these purer feelings has not raised
the individual to, at least, a momentary exemption from the common
thraldom of self. And we greatly err if their universality is not
solely limited by those "shades of the prison-house," which, in the
words of the poet, too often "close upon the growing boy." Nay, so
far as we have observed, we cannot admit it as a question whether any
person through a whole life has always been wholly insensible,--we
will not say (though well we might) to the good and true,--but to
beauty; at least, to some one kind, or degree, of the beautiful. The
most abject wretch, however animalized by vice, may still be able to
recall the time when a morning or evening sky, a bird, a flower, or
the sight of some other object in nature, has given him a pleasure,
which he felt to be distinct from that of his animal appetites, and
to which he could attach not a thought of self-interest. And, though
crime and misery may close the heart for years, and seal it up for
ever to every redeeming thought, they cannot so shut out from the
memory these gleams of innocence; even the brutified spirit, the
castaway of his kind, has been made to blush at this enduring light;