The very first of these difficulties is to know what we really like.
It is probably impossible to look at a famous work with eyes clear
from preconceived impressions: copies, engravings, photographs, have
familiarized us in some measure with the finest things in the world.
However imperfect an idea may be given by reproductions of great
pictures--great in size as well as merit--whether we have seen a
Marcantonio or a Raphael Morghen or only a _carte de visite_--a notion
of their chief features is acquired: we recognize them from the
farther end of the gallery, whither indeed we have generally come in
quest of them, and the results are very like those of a first sight of
Niagara. Everybody knows how that looks--the huge downpour of the
American Fall, the graceful rush of the slenderer stream formed by
Goat Island, the mighty curve and tremendous placidity of the
Horseshoe Fall, the clouds of spray, the lightly poised rainbow. But
all this does not give us the feeling of Niagara: one person is
overwhelmed, another enraptured, very many are disappointed. Besides,
we are bothered by notions of how we ought to feel at such a moment.
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