And I could wish abstention to exist, and even to be evident, in
my words. In literature as in all else man merits his subjection to
trivialities by a kind of economical greed. A condition for using justly
and gaily any decoration would seem to be a certain reluctance.
Ornament--strange as the doctrine sounds in a world decivilised--was in
the beginning intended to be something jocund; and jocundity was never to
be achieved but by postponement, deference, and modesty. Nor can the
prodigality of the meadows in May be quoted in dispute. For Nature has
something even more severe than moderation: she has an innumerable
singleness. Her butter-cup meadows are not prodigal; they show
multitude, but not multiplicity, and multiplicity is exactly the disgrace
of decoration. Who has ever multiplied or repeated his delights? or who
has ever gained the granting of the most foolish of his wishes--the
prayer for reiteration? It is a curious slight to generous Fate that man
should, like a child, ask for one thing many times. Her answer every
time is a resembling but new and single gift; until the day when she
shall make the one tremendous difference among her gifts--and make it
perhaps in secret--by naming one of them the ultimate.
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