LOVE FOR THE BEAUTIFUL.
"Every color, every variety of form, has some purpose and
explanation."--_Sir John Lubbock_.[65]
Now, when we are almost at the end of the way we have traveled
together, it will be natural to look back upon the road over which we
have come. Not all of it will be visible, to be sure. We have
forgotten this pleasant scene and that; others, however, remain fresh
in our minds. And as the days pass and we think over our way there
will now and again come to us a scene, a remembrance, so full of
beauty and of pleasure that we shall feel rich in the possession of
it.
To me there is nothing we have learned together greater in value,
richer in truth and comfort than the thought that the beautiful in
music and in art is at the same time the good. Even if a person is not
at all times good, there is raised in him the feeling of it whenever
he consciously looks upon a beautiful object. We see in this how wise
it is for one to choose to have beautiful things, to surround others
with them, to love them, and to place reverent hands upon them.
We can never make a mistake about gentle hands. Once a lady said to a
boy:
"You should touch all things with the same delicacy that one should
bestow upon a tender flower. It shows that deep within yourself you
are at rest, that you make your hands go forward to a task carefully
and with much thought. In the roughest games you play do not forget
this; then your hands shall be filled with all the thought you have
within yourself."
Sometimes, when I am in a great gallery, the thought is very strong in
me, that many (ever, and ever so many) people, in all countries and in
all times, have so loved the beautiful as to devote their lives to it.
Painters, who have made pictures to delight men for generations,
looked and looked and _prayed_ to find the beautiful. And we must
believe that one looks out of the heart to find the beautiful or he
finds only the common. And the sculptors who have loved marble for the
delight they have in beautiful forms, they, too, with eyes seeking
beauty, and hands so gentle upon the marble that it almost breathes
for them, they, too, have loved the beautiful.
But commoner ones have the tenderest love for what is sweet and fair
in life,--people who are neither painters nor sculptors. In their
little way--but it is a _true_ way--they have sunlight in their
hearts, and with it love for something.
Perhaps it is a flower. I have been told of a man--in fact I have seen
him--who could do the cruelest things; who was so bad that he could
not be permitted to go free among others, and yet he loved plants so
much that if they were put near him he would move quietly among them,
touching this one and that; gazing at them, and acting as if he were
in another world. As we said once before about the spring, so we may
say here about love for the beautiful: it may be covered up with every
thing that is able to keep it down, but _it is always there_.
It is always pleasanter to hear about people and their ways than to
heed advice. But people and their ways often set us good examples; and
we were curious, indeed, if we did not look sharply at ourselves to
see just what we are. From all we have been told about the beautiful
we can at least learn this: that it sweetens life; that it makes even
a common life bright; that if we have it in us it may be as golden
sunlight to some poor one who is in the darkness of ignorance, that is
the advantage and the beauty of all good things in our lives, namely,
the good it may be unto others. And the beautiful music we may sing or
play is not to show what we are or what we can do--it will, of course
do these things--but it is to be a blessing to those who listen. And
how are blessings bestowed? _Out of the heart._
Once there was a nobleman[66] with power and riches. He loved
everything. Learning and art and all had he partaken of. But the times
were troubled in his country, and for some reason he lost all he had
and was imprisoned. Then there was scarcely anything in his life. All
he had was the cell, the prison-yard, and, now and again, a word or
two with his keeper. The cell was small and gloomy, the keeper silent,
the yard confined and so closely paved with cobblestones that one
could scarcely see the earth between them.
Yes, indeed, it was a small world and a barren one into which they had
forced him. But he had his thoughts, and daily as he walked in his
confined yard, they were busy with the past, weaving, weaving. What
patterns they made, and he, poor one, was sometimes afraid of them!
But still they kept on weaving, weaving.
One day, as he walked in his yard, he noticed that between two of the
stones there seemed to be something and he looked at it. With the
greatest attention he studied it, then he knelt on the rude stones and
looked and looked again. His heart beat and his hands trembled, but
yet with a touch as gentle as any one could give, he moved a grain or
two of soil and there, beneath, was something which the poor captive
cried out for joy to see--a tiny plant. As if in a new world, and
certainly as if another man, he cared daily for the tender little
companion that had come to share his loneliness; he thought of it
first in the morning and last at night. He gave it of his supply of
water and, as a father, he watched over it.
And it grew so that one day he saw that his plant must either die or
have more room. And it could not have more room unless a cobblestone
were removed. Now this could only be done with the consent of the
Emperor. Well, let us not stop to hear about the way he found, but he
did get his request to the Emperor and, after a while, what happened
do you think? That the plant was given more room? Yes, that is partly
it, and the rest is this: the prisoner himself was given more room--he
was liberated.
Just because the seed of a beautiful thing came to life in his tiny
world he found love for it and a new life, a care, _something outside
of himself_. And it brought him all.
That love which is not given to self reveals the beauty of the world.