joy. We withhold, we close. Having denied many things that have
approached us, we deny ourselves to many things. Thus does _il gran
rifiuto_ divide and rule our world.

Simplicity is worth the sacrifice; but all is not sacrifice. Rejection
has its pleasures, the more secret the more unmeasured. When we garnish
a house we refuse more furniture, and furniture more various, than might
haunt the dreams of decorators. There is no limit to our rejections. And
the unconsciousness of the decorators is in itself a cause of pleasure to
a mind generous, forbearing, and delicate. When we dress, no fancy may
count the things we will none of. When we write, what hinders that we
should refrain from Style past reckoning? When we marry--. Moreover, if
simplicity is no longer set in a world having the great and beautiful
quality of fewness, we can provide an equally fair setting in the quality
of refinement. And refinement is not to be achieved but by rejection.
One who suggests to me that refinement is apt to be a mere negative has
offered up a singular blunder in honour of robustiousness. Refinement is
not negative, because it must be compassed by many negations. It is a
thing of price as well as of value; it demands immolations, it exacts
experience. No slight or easy charge, then, is committed to such of us
as, having apprehension of these things, fulfil the office of exclusion.
Never before was a time when derogation was always so near, a daily
danger, or when the reward of resisting it was so great. The simplicity
of literature, more sensitive, more threatened, and more important than
other simplicities, needs a guard of honour, who shall never relax the
good will nor lose the good heart of their intolerance.