Picture-galleries should be the working-man's paradise, {230} a garden of
pleasure, to which he goes to refresh his eyes and heart with beautiful
shapes and sweet colouring, when they are wearied with dull bricks and
mortar, and the ugly colourless things which fill the town, the workshop
and the factory. For, believe me, there is many a road into our hearts
besides our ears and brains; many a sight, and sound, and scent, even, of
which we have never _thought_ at all, sinks into our memory, and helps to
shape our characters; and thus children brought up among beautiful sights
and sweet sounds will most likely show the fruits of their nursing, by
thoughtfulness and affection, and nobleness of mind, even by the
expression of the countenance. The poet Wordsworth, talking of training
up a beautiful country girl, says:--
"The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her--for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see,
Even in the motions of the storm,
_Grace which shall mould the maiden's form_,
_By silent sympathy_.
* * * * *
And she shall bend her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
_And beauty_, _born of murmuring sound_,
_Shall pass into her face_."
Those who live in towns should carefully remember this, for their own
sakes, for their wives' sakes, for their children's sakes. _Never lose
an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful_. Beauty is God's
handwriting--a wayside sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every
fair sky, every fair flower, and thank _Him_ for it, who is the fountain
of all loveliness, and drink it in, simply and earnestly, with all your
eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.
Therefore I said that picture-galleries should be the townsman's paradise
of refreshment. Of course, if he can get the real air, the real trees,
even for an hour, let him take it, in God's name; but how many a man who
cannot spare time for a daily country walk, may well slip into the
National Gallery in Trafalgar Square (or the South Kensington Museum), or
any other collection of pictures, for ten minutes. _That_ garden, at
least, flowers as gaily in winter as in summer. Those noble faces on the
wall are never disfigured by grief or passion. There, in the space of a
single room, the townsman may take his country walk--a walk beneath
mountain peaks, blushing sunsets, with broad woodlands spreading out
below it; a walk through green meadows, under cool mellow shades, and
overhanging rocks, by rushing brooks, where he watches and watches till
he seems to _hear_ the foam whisper, and to _see_ the fishes leap; and
his hard worn heart wanders out free, beyond the grim city-world of stone
and iron, smoky chimneys, and roaring wheels, into the world of beautiful
things--_the world which shall be hereafter_--ay, which shall be! Believe
it, toil-worn worker, in spite of thy foul alley, thy crowded lodging,
thy grimed clothing, thy ill-fed children, thy thin, pale wife--believe
it, thou too and thine, will some day have _your_ share of beauty. God
made you love beautiful things only because He intends hereafter to give
you your fill of them. That pictured face on the wall is lovely, but
lovelier still may the wife of thy bosom be when she meets thee on the
resurrection morn! Those baby cherubs in the old Italian painting--how
gracefully they flutter and sport among the soft clouds, full of rich
young life and baby joy! Yes, beautiful indeed, but just such a one at
this very moment is that once pining, deformed child of thine, over whose
death-cradle thou wast weeping a month ago; now a child-angel, whom thou
shalt meet again never to part! Those landscapes, too, painted by
loving, wise old Claude, two hundred years ago, are still as fresh as
ever. How still the meadows are! how pure and free that vault of deep
blue sky! No wonder that thy worn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud,
"Oh that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest."
Ah, but gayer meadows and bluer skies await thee in the _world to
come_--that fairy-land made real--"the new heavens and the new earth,"
which God has prepared for the pure and the loving, the just and the
brave, who have conquered in this sore fight of life!
These thoughts may seem all too far-fetched to spring up in a man's head
from merely looking at pictures; but it is not so in practice. See, now,
such thoughts have sprung up in _my_ head; how else did I write them down
here? And why should not they, and better ones, too, spring up in your
heads, friends? It is delightful to watch in a picture-gallery some
street-boy enjoying himself; how first wonder creeps over his rough face,
and then a sweeter, more earnest, awestruck look, till his countenance
seems to grow handsomer and nobler on the spot, and drink in and reflect
unknowingly, the beauty of the picture he is studying. See how some
soldier's face will light up before the painting which tells him a noble
story of bye-gone days. And why? Because he feels as if he himself had
a share in the story at which he looks. They may be noble and glorious
men who are painted there; but they are still _men_ of like passions with
himself, and his man's heart understands them and glories in them; and he
begins, and rightly, to respect himself the more when he finds that he,
too, has a fellow-feeling with noble men and noble deeds.
I say, pictures raise blessed thoughts in me--why not in you, my
brothers? Your hearts are fresh, thoughtful, kindly; you only want to
have these pictures explained to you, that you may know _why_ and _how_
they are beautiful, and what feelings they ought to stir in your minds.
Look at the portraits on the walls, and let me explain one or two. Often
the portraits are simpler than large pictures, and they speak of real men
and women who once lived on this earth of ours--generally of remarkable
and noble men--and man should be always interesting to man.