In nature as well as in poetry the sense of beauty is stimulated
by contrast. If all women were pretty, how soon we should cease
to admire lovely eyes and fair complexions and the thousand
charms which make women in their weakness stronger than men
are in their strength; if all men were handsome fine features
would be disregarded. In climates which have months of perpetual
drought and heat, the blue sky becomes hateful, and the sun,
instead of being the best of friends, as in temperate lands, is
regarded as an enemy. An Englishman finds cloudy days depressing
because they are so frequent in his own land; his brothers in
tropical lands welcome them because they are so few. In animal
life, too, the same rule holds good, and I question if we should
admire the exquisite shape of a gazelle or of a well-bred horse,
and the superb plumage of the peacock and the secretary-bird,
were it not for the contrast afforded by the rhinoceros, the
hippopotamus, and the vulture.--_Illustrated London News._
(566)
=Contrasted Careers=--See CAREERS CONTRASTED.
=Contrasts, Shameful=--See EXTRAVAGANCE, CENSURABLE.