So it is in the villa: the more memory, the more sorrow;
and, therefore, the less adaptation to its present purpose. But, though
cheerful, it should be ethereal in its expression: "spiritual" is a good
word, giving ideas of the very highest order of delight that can be
obtained in the mere present.
[Footnote 19: Observe, we are not speaking of emotions felt on
remembering what we ourselves have enjoyed, for then the imagination is
productive of pleasure by replacing us in enjoyment, but of the feelings
excited in the _indifferent_ spectator, by the evident decay of power or
desolation of enjoyment, of which the first ennobles, the other only
harrows, the spirit.]
120. It seems, then, that for all these reasons an appearance of age is
not desirable, far less necessary, in the villa; but its existing
character must be in unison with its country; and it must appear to be
inhabited by one brought up in that country, and imbued with its
national feelings. In Italy, especially, though we can even here
dispense with one component part of elevation of character,--age, we
must have all the others: we must have high feeling, beauty of form, and
depth of effect, or the thing will be a barbarism; the inhabitant must
be an Italian, full of imagination and emotion: a villa inhabited by an
Englishman, no matter how close its imitation of others, will always be
preposterous.
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