And
though not indeed by degree to degree, yet in essential relation (as of
winds to waves, the one being always the true cause of the other, though
they are not necessarily of equal force at the same time,) we shall find
vice in its varieties, with art-failure,--and virtue in its varieties,
with art-success,--fall and rise together; the peasant-girl's song at her
spinning-wheel, the peasant laborer's "to the oaks and rills,"--domestic
music, feebly yet sensitively skilful,--music for the multitude, of
beneficent or of traitorous power,--dance-melodies, pure and orderly, or
foul and frantic,--march-music, blatant in mere fever of animal
pugnacity, or majestic with force of national duty and memory,--
song-music, reckless, sensual, sickly, slovenly, forgetful even of the
foolish words it effaces with foolish noise,--or thoughtful, sacred,
healthful, artful, forever sanctifying noble thought with separately
distinguished loveliness of belonging sound,--all these families and
graduations of good or evil, however mingled, follow, in so far as they
are good, one constant law of virtue (or "life-strength," which is the
literal meaning of the word, and its intended one, in wise men's mouths),
and in so far as they are evil, are evil by outlawry and unvirtue, or
death-weakness.
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