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The Greek word euphuia, a finely tempered nature, gives exactly the notion of perfection as culture brings us to perceive it; a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things"--as Swift . . . most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books, "the two noblest of things, sweetness and light."

The pursuit of the perfect, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.

Culture is the passion for sweetness and light, and the passion for making them prevail.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.

Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good.

Sweet meat must have sour sauce.

To pile up honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness.

Everye white will have its blacke, And everye sweete its soure.

Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.

Instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door.