Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

EDINBURGH

JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,''CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 183. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1847.

'A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOR EVER.' WHAT is the use of Beauty? Is it intended merely to amuse the fancy for a time, and then pall, fade, and be forgotten? In a system where nothing else is lost, where all is fitness and coherence, and where each part, however minute, seems as necessary to the whole as a single link is to the continuity of a chain, is this quality alone without definite meaning or permanent purpose? Analogy is against the supposition; and we must either set down beauty as an unmeaning superfluity in the scheme of creation, or else assign it an importance commensurate with the space it occupies in our thoughts.

The impressions we receive from external objects are sufficiently well understood in their momentary effects. It is customary, for instance, to say that the beauty of some still and solitary landscape, coming in amidst the conflict of the passions, tranquillises the unquiet bosom, and smooths the wrinkled brow. But if this is correct in the particular application, may we not deduce from it, as a result, that a habitual exposure to similar influences will have a permanent effect upon the mind? We derive pleasure from a beautiful picture; and if seen for the first time, the feeling is exaggerated by surprise and suddenness. At subsequent visits, such adventitious circumstances grow fainter and fainter, and our pleasure becomes more and more calm; till at lengthsupposing the object constantly present-we view it without any apparent emotion at all. But it is a mistake to suppose that the effects of this form of the beautiful have disappeared with their external phenomena. We feel the picture, without seeing it. We breathe in its invisible presence an atmosphere of beauty, as unconsciously as we inhale the vital air.

PRICE 1d.

fluence of natural scenery upon the human mind, which we could hardly have hoped for. It occurs in a little work entitled 'Settlers and Convicts in the Australian Backwoods,' written by a hard-working self-taught mechanic, who was struck with the effect of the localities in which they laboured upon the character of the convicts. Inanimate nature,' says he, 'is universally lovely in these wildernesses; and a cheerful unprejudiced eye may often observe strange assimilations going forward, in the human character, to the faultless still-life around, which God has retained under his own more immediate control.' There is deep, however unconscious, philosophy in this remark. The beauty of external nature is, in truth, the immediate work of God, intended to act morally upon the mind of man. But the mind must to a certain extent be prepared to receive its impressions. Beauty, for instance, has had no more effect in civilising the Australian savage, than in taming the kangaroo; whereas, within the heart of even the worst European convict, there is a hoard of gentle feelings and holy recollections which, buried though they be under the accumulations of vice, and folly, and wo, may be drawn forth by the congenial influences of nature.

This of itself is a sufficient answer to those, if any such there be, who inquire, What is the use of beauty? Such persons, we presume, would measure the utility of a public park by the extent of its area, by the number of cubic feet of fresh air it presents to the lungs of the people-ignorant that the health of the visitors depends in as great measure upon the picture presented to the eye. They would throw open the national galleries, the cathedrals, and the palaces, in order to improve the mind by facilitating the study of styles of art, ignorant that the tendency of such exhibitions is towards a still more important improvement an-that a spirit of beauty hovers amid these pictured walls and fretted vaults, with healing on its wing!

Beauty, therefore, is not a mere toy of the fancy, but important agent in human progress. It is not a luxury, but a necessary. It is not adapted for one class, but for all. It would be untrue to say that beauty is not studied as an art: but hitherto it has been studied from false motives, and in a mean and contracted spirit. Governments and municipalities exercise what architectural taste they may possess, from some vague idea that a combination of the elegant with the useful is necessary to their dignity and character. Rich men lay out their parks and gardens, and fill their houses with agreeable objects, to gratify their own instinctive yearning after the beautiful; and if they extend their care to a cottage or a hamlet, it is merely because these are adjuncts of the physical picture. But no one fancies that beauty is, in reality, a public good-that it should be followed as a moral virtue-that it should be taught and disseminated as a powerful means of making mankind happier and better.

All these are large objects-hills and valleys, woods and waters, parks, museums, collections of pictures, and sublime or elegant edifices; and their influence will be obvious in proportion. A walk or ride in a picturesque country, or sail on a river or on the sea, are not merely beneficial to the body, as is commonly supposed, but likewise to the mind. Neither do they act upon the one through the other. The one inhales its aliment or medicine by means of the lungs, or imbibes it by the pores of the skin; while the other depends upon entirely different faculties for those images of peace or joy whose province it is to heal the spirit, by elevating it above bad and anxious thoughts. Similar wholesome images will be induced by a museum of specimens, a collection of pictures, or a concert of music, where there is no fresh air for the nourishment of the body; and the view of a fine cathedral, even when the visitor is a

We met, the other day, with an illustration of the in- wholly uninformed person, will come in as a more im

portant moral adjunct than is commonly supposed to the great truths enunciated at other times from its pulpit.

But great objects are not accessible on all occasions. Few of us, in this hard-working country, can very often walk, or ride, or sail, or go anywhere in search of what is called, however erroneously, mere amusement. Beauty, however, is not confined to places or things: it is omniform and ubiquitous. It exists in the plot of ground before the cottage, as well as in the garden or park; in the flower-pot on the sill-in the tuneful cage hung up by the window-in the picture on the wall-in the form of an article of furniture-in the colour and shape of a gown or cap. It is a mistake to blame even the very poorest for the indulgence of taste-or rather it is a mistake not to cultivate taste in them as a means of moral improvement. Extravagance in dress, or anything else, has nothing to do with the question of beauty; and, at any rate, the extravagance of the poor is usually confined to matters of quite another kind. Preach to them, if you will, of the virtue of economy, the uses of time, the madness of intoxication; but spare the flower-the bird-the picture-the something-the nothing-which serve as bonds between them and the universal spirit of beauty. Touch not with irreverent hand the household gods that consecrate the homes of the poor!

'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.'

expression is the spiritual part of beauty. An inanimate object gives us more or less pleasure, according to the state of mind in which we view it; but, strictly speaking, it has in itself only one expression, one form and degree of beauty; while in a human being, in whom spirit dominates over matter, the physical part takes its character almost exclusively from the mind within.

The contempt which some people affect for physical beauty of face and form, is not only irrational, but in a certain degree impious. Such beauty is of a higher kind than that of a star or a flower, on which even the most stolid think it decorous to bestow their admiration; and when sanctified and sublimed by the holy light from within, it is undoubtedly the most admirable of all the works of God. But the pleasure it gives is entirely dependent on the kind and degree of this intermixture of the esoteric and exoteric: a fact which may be placed in a sufficiently obvious light, by supposing a face of absolute perfection in the mould of the features, yet destitute of one ray of intelligencethe face of an idiot. This face excites horror instead of admiration. The deprivation of moral beauty has a similar effect to that of intellectual beauty; and in less extreme cases than those of utter fatuity or depravity, while fully admitting the physical advantages that may be possessed by the features, the pleasure we derive from them is in exact proportion to that more ethereal loveliness perceived by the mind, like all its other ideas, through impressions made upon the senses.

No one can have failed to observe that cleanliness and neatness go hand in hand. A woman who is careUpon these principles might be explained and reconless of the form and becomingness of her dress, is al-ciled certain varieties in Love, which are usually treated, ways an economist in soap and water, if in nothing else; at least by the grave, as irrational or ridiculous. The and a slattern—a despiser of the virtue of beauty—is as love of a child has no reference to form or feature. It bad as a pestilence at the fireside. She cannot be careselects its object by means of an instinct which peneless of her dress and person, without becoming careless trates beyond the surface, and finds no difficulty in dotof her husband, children, household, and generally of ing upon age, ugliness, and disease. The youth graduall her moral duties. In the present day, more espe- ally forsakes the idols of his infancy as he grows up; cially, there is no excuse for inelegance in dress, nature and the young man, whose natural perceptions are enand simplicity being the rule of fashion. We are in- tirely obliterated in the school of the world, attaches clined to think,' says the Quarterly Review on this sub-himself franticly to mere physical beauty. In the course ject, that the female attire of the present day is, upon the whole, in as favourable a state as the most vehement advocates for what is called nature and simplicity could desire. It is a costume in which they can dress quickly, walk nimbly, eat plentifully, stoop easily, loll gracefully, and, in short, perform all the duties of life without let or hindrance. The head is left to its natural size--the skin to its native purity-the waist at its proper region -the heels at their real level. The dress is calculated to bring out the natural beauties of the person, and each of them has, as far as we see, fair play.' Such being the female costume, a peasant may exercise as much taste in regard to it as a peeress; and as for colours, thanks to the perfection of our manufactures, the two parties are pretty nearly equal.

And

There is nothing that shows more completely the connection between external and internal beauty, than the impressions we receive from the human face and form. Habitual bad temper gives the effect of ugliness to the loveliest features; and habitual good temper renders the plainest agreeable and attractive. these, be it observed, are the qualities of the features themselves, and do not depend-as is the case with those of an inanimate object, when a change takes place in the impressions we receive from it-upon the mood of mind of the observer. The handsome features are admitted to be correctly chiselled, and the plain features to be irregular, if not grotesque; but the character of

of years-perhaps not till many years-a change ensues. He finds that he has been worshipping a phantom, grasping at a shadow-that his love was a mere delusion, and his happiness or misery nothing more than a feverish dream. Then comes the triumph of mind over matter. Then do the plainest features become luminous with love in the eyes of the rusé man of the world. But judging no more by the unerring instinct of childhood, he is frequently deceived; and on such occasions he feels a pang far more terrible than that with which he had started from the golden visions of youth. But all is at length past-instinct obliterated, the lessons of experience forgotten; and the old man returns, with imbecile energy, to the illusions of early life, to dote once more upon physical beauty.

We have now run through a few of the common forms of the beautiful; but the catalogue is capable of almost infinite extension, and might be crowded with such incongruous images as are heaped together by a modern French poet, in his definition of the kindred

word 'charm:'

A charm? It is a vision wove

By passion-an enchantment deep-
The first sweet kiss of bashful love-
The smile that lights an infant's sleep:
It is a yellow leaf the wind
Bears wildly from the withered bough-
The calmness of the thoughtful mind-
The paleness of the thoughtful brow-

both is changed by something we call expression. This And so on through a multitude of things, all distinct

« PreviousContinue »