In the old Greek myth the life of Meleager was indissolubly connected by

fate with the existence of a particular log of wood. As long as this was

kept safe by Althaea, his mother, Meleager bore a charmed life. It seems

wonderful that we do not watch with equal care over our body, on the state

of which happiness so much depends.

The requisites of health are plain enough; regular habits, daily exercise,

cleanliness, and moderation in all things--in eating as well as in

drinking--would keep most people well.

I need not here dwell on the evils of drinking, but we perhaps scarcely

realize how much of the suffering and ill-humor of life is due to

over-eating. Dyspepsia, for instance, from which so many suffer, is in

nine cases out of ten their own fault, and arises from the combination of

too much food with too little exercise. To lengthen your life, says an old

proverb, shorten your meals. Plain living and high thinking will secure

health for most of us, though it matters, perhaps, comparatively little

what a healthy man eats, so long as he does not eat too much.

Mr. Gladstone has told us that the splendid health he enjoys is greatly

due to his having early learnt one simple physiological maxim, and laid it

down as a rule for himself always to make twenty-five bites at every bit

of meat.

"Go to your banquet then, but use delight,

So as to rise still with an appetite." [1]

No doubt, however, though the rule not to eat or drink too much is simple

enough in theory, it is not quite so easy in application. There have been

many Esaus who sold their birthright of health for a mess of pottage.

Moreover, it may seem paradoxical, but it is certainly true, that in the

long run the moderate man will derive more enjoyment even from eating and

drinking, than the glutton or the drunkard will ever obtain. They know not

what it is to enjoy "the exquisite taste of common dry bread." [2]

And yet even if we were to consider merely the pleasure to be derived from

eating and drinking, the same rule would hold good. A lunch of bread and

cheese after a good walk is more enjoyable than a Lord Mayor's feast.

Without wishing, like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so that he might

enjoy his dinner longer, we must not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we

derive from eating and drinking, even though they be amongst the least

aesthetic of our pleasures. They are homely, no doubt, but they come

morning, noon, and night, and are not the less real because they have

reference to the body rather than the soul.

We speak truly of a healthy appetite, for it is a good test of our bodily

condition; and indeed in some cases of our mental state also. That

"There cometh no good thing

Apart from toil to mortals,"

is especially true with reference to appetite; to sit down to a dinner,

however simple, after a walk with a friend among the mountains or along

the shore, is no insignificant pleasure.

Cheerfulness and good humor, moreover, during meals are not only pleasant

in themselves, but conduce greatly to health.

It has been said that hunger is the best sauce, but most would prefer some

good stories at a feast even to a good appetite; and who would not like to

have it said of him, as of Biron by Rosaline--

"A merrier man

Within the limit of becoming mirth

I never spent an hour's talk withal."

In the three great "Banquets" of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the food

is not even mentioned.

In the words of the old Lambeth adage--

"What is a merry man?

Let him do what he can

To entertain his guests

With wine and pleasant jests,

Yet if his wife do frown

All merryment goes down."

What salt is to food, wit and humor are to conversation and literature.

"You do not," an amusing writer in the _Cornhill_ has said, "expect humor

in Thomas à Kempis or Hebrew Prophets;" but we have Solomon's authority

that there is a time to laugh, as well as to weep.

"To read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, when the

best things are said, and the most amusing things happen." [3]

It is not without reason that every one resents the imputation of being

unable to see a joke.

Laughter appears to be the special prerogative of man. The higher animals

present us with proof of evident, if not highly developed reasoning power,

but it is more than doubtful whether they are capable of appreciating a

joke.

Wit, moreover, has solved many difficulties and decided many

controversies.

"Ridicule shall frequently prevail,

And cut the knot when graver reasons fail." [4]

A careless song, says Walpole, with a little nonsense in it now and then,

does not misbecome a monarch, but it is difficult now to realize that

James I. should have regarded skill in punning in his selections of

bishops and privy councillors.

The most wasted of all days, says Chamfort, is that on which one has not

laughed.

It is, moreover, no small merit of laughter that it is quite spontaneous.

"You cannot force people to laugh; you cannot give a reason why they

should laugh; they must laugh of themselves or not at all.... If we think

we must not laugh, this makes our temptation to laugh the greater." [5]

Humor is, moreover, contagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of

himself, "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in

other men."

But one may paraphrase the well-known remark about port wine and say that

some jokes may be better than others, but anything which makes one laugh

is good. "After all," says Dryden, "it is a good thing to laugh at any

rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness,"

and I may add, of health.

I have been told that in omitting any mention of smoking I was overlooking

one of the real pleasures of life. Not being a smoker myself I cannot

perhaps judge; much must depend on the individual temperament; to some

nervous natures it certainly appears to be a great comfort; but I have my

doubts whether smoking, as a general rule, does add to the pleasures of

life. It must, moreover, detract somewhat from the sensitiveness of taste

and of smell.

Those who live in cities may almost lay it down as a rule that no time

spent out of doors is ever wasted. Fresh air is a cordial of incredible

virtue; old families are in all senses county families, not town families;

and those who prefer Homer and Plato and Shakespeare to hares and

partridges and foxes must beware that they are not tempted to neglect this

great requisite of our nature.

Most Englishmen, however, love open air, and it is probably true that most

of us enjoy a game at cricket or golf more than looking at any of the old

masters. The love of sport is engraven in the English character. As was

said of William Rufus, "he loves the tall deer as he had been their

father."

An Oriental traveler is said to have watched a game of cricket and been

much astonished at hearing that many of those playing were rich men. He

asked why they did not pay some poor people to do it for them.

Wordsworth made it a rule to go out every day, and he used to say that as

he never consulted the weather, he never had to consult the physicians.

It always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at

the weather through the window. Even in winter, though the landscape often

seems cheerless and bare enough when you look at it from the fireside,

still it is far better to go out, even if you have to brave the storm:

when you are once out of doors the touch of earth and the breath of the

fresh air gives you fresh life and energy. Men, like trees, live in great

part on air.

After a gallop over the downs, a row on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by

the seashore or in the woods

"The blue above, the music in the air,

The flowers upon the ground," [6]

one feels as if one could say with Henry IV., "Je me porte comme le Ponte

Neuf."

The Roman proverb that a child should be taught nothing which he cannot

learn standing up, went no doubt into an extreme, but surely we fall into

another when we act as if games were the only thing which boys could learn

upon their feet.

The love of games among boys is certainly a healthy instinct, and though

carried too far in some of our great schools, there can be no question

that cricket and football, boating and hockey, bathing and birdnesting,

are not only the greatest pleasures, but the best medicines for boys.

We cannot always secure sleep. When important decisions have to be taken,

the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep us awake.

Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthy sleep than plenty of open

air. Then indeed we can enjoy the fresh life of the early morning: "the

breezy call of incense-bearing morn." [7]

"At morn the Blackcock trims his jetty wing,

'Tis morning tempts the linnet's blithest lay,

All nature's children feel the matin spring

Of life reviving with reviving day."

Epictetus described himself as "a spirit bearing about a corpse." That

seems to me an ungrateful description. Surely we ought to cherish the

body, even if it be but a frail and humble companion. Do we not own to the

eye our enjoyment of the beauties of this world and the glories of the

Heavens; to the ear the voices of friends and all the delights of music;

are not the hands most faithful and invaluable instruments, ever ready in

case of need, ever willing to do our bidding; and even the feet bear us

without a murmur along the roughest and stoniest paths of life.

With reasonable care, then, most of us may hope to enjoy good health. And

yet what a marvellous and complex organization we have!

We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. It is

"Strange that a harp of a thousand strings,

Should keep in tune so long."

When we consider the marvellous complexity of our bodily organization, it

seems a miracle that we should live at all; much more that the innumerable

organs and processes should continue day after day and year after year

with so much regularity and so little friction that we are sometimes

scarcely conscious of having a body at all.

And yet in that body we have more than 200 bones, of complex and varied

forms, any irregularity in, or injury to, which would of course grievously

interfere with our movements.

We have over 500 muscles; each nourished by almost innumerable blood

vessels, and regulated by nerves. One of our muscles, the heart, beats

over 30,000,000 times in a year, and if it once stops, all is over.

In the skin are wonderfully varied and complex organs--for instance, over

2,000,000 perspiration glands, which regulate the temperature and

communicate with the surface by ducts, which have a total length of some

ten miles.

Think of the miles of arteries and veins, of capillaries and nerves; of

the blood, with the millions of millions of blood corpuscles, each a

microcosm in itself.

Think of the organs of sense,--the eye with its cornea and lens, vitreous

humor, aqueous humor, and choroid, culminating in the retina, no thicker

than a sheet of paper, and yet consisting of nine distinct layers, the

innermost composed of rods and cones, supposed to be the immediate

recipients of the undulations of light, and so numerous that in each eye

the cones are estimated at over 3,000,000, the rods at over 30,000,000.

Above all, and most wonderful of all, the brain itself. Meinert has

calculated that the gray matter of the convolutions alone contains no less

than 600,000,000 cells; each cell consists of several thousand visible

atoms, and each atom again of many millions of molecules.

And yet with reasonable care we can most of us keep this wonderful

organization in health; so that it will work without causing us pain, or

even discomfort, for many years; and we may hope that even when old age

comes

"Time may lay his hand

Upon your heart gently, not smiting it

But as a harper lays his open palm

Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations."

[1] Herrick.

[2] Hamerton.

[3] Hazlitt.

[4] Francis.

[5] Hazlitt.

[6] Trench.

[7] Gray.

CHAPTER IV.

LOVE.

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,

And men below and saints above;

For love is heaven and heaven is love."

SCOTT.

CHAPTER IV.

LOVE.

Love is the light and sunshine of life. We are so constituted that we

cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless some one we love

enjoys it with us. Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope

of sharing it hereafter with those we love.

Love lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance;

in childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for

children, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends.

The strength of friendship is indeed proverbial, and in some cases, as in

that of David and Jonathan, is described as surpassing the love of women.

But I need not now refer to it, having spoken already of what we owe to

friends.

The goodness of Providence to man has been often compared to that of

fathers and mothers for their children.

"Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,

Yearns toward her little children from her seat,

Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,

Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet;

And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,

She learns their feelings and their various will,

To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,

And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;--

So Providence for us, high, infinite,

Makes our necessities its watchful task,

Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,

And e'en if it denies what seems our right,

Either denies because 'twould have us ask,

Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants." [1]

Sir Walter Scott well says--

"And if there be on Earth a tear

From passion's dross [2] refined and clear,

'Tis that which pious fathers shed

Upon a duteous daughter's head."

Epaminondas is said to have given as his main reason for rejoicing at the

victory of Leuctra, that it would give so much pleasure to his father and

mother.

Nor must the love of animals be altogether omitted. It is impossible not

to sympathize with the Savage when he believes in their immortality, and

thinks that after death

"Admitted to that equal sky

His faithful dog shall bear him company." [3]

In the _Mahabharata_, the great Indian Epic, when the family of Pandavas,

the heroes, at length reach the gates of heaven, they are welcomed

themselves, but are told that their dog cannot come in. Having pleaded in

vain, they turn to depart, as they say they can never leave their faithful

companion. Then at the last moment the Angel at the door relents, and

their Dog is allowed to enter with them.

We may hope the time will come when we shall learn

"Never to blend our pleasures or our pride,

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." [4]

But at the present moment I am speaking rather of the love which leads to

marriage. Such love is the music of life, nay, "there is music in the

beauty, and the silver note of love, far sweeter than the sound of any

instrument." [5]

The Symposium of Plato contains an interesting and amusing disquisition on

Love.

"Love," Phaedrus is made to say, "will make men dare to die for their

beloved--love alone: and women as well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the

daughter of Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to

lay down her life on behalf of her husband, when no one else would,

although he had a father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far

exceeded theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their

own son, and in name only related to him; and so noble did this action of

hers appear to the gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have

done virtuously she is one of the very few to whom they have granted the

privilege of returning to earth, in admiration of her virtue; such

exceeding honor is paid by them to the devotion and virtue of love."

Agathon is even more eloquent--

Love "fills men with affection, and takes away their disaffection, making

them meet together at such banquets as these. In sacrifices, feasts,

dances, he is our lord--supplying kindness and banishing unkindness,

giving friendship and forgiving anmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of

the wise, the amazement of the gods, desired by those who have no part in

him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of

delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful of the

good, regardless of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear--pilot,

comrade, helper, savior; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest:

in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honor that

sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men."

No doubt, even so there are two Loves, "one, the daughter of Uranus, who

has no mother, and is the elder and wiser goddess; and the other, the

daughter of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and common,"--but let us not

examine too closely. Charity tells us even of Guinevere, "that while she

lived, she was a good lover and therefore she had a good end." [6]

The origin of love has exercised philosophers almost as much as the origin

of evil. The Symposium continues with a speech which Plato attributes in

joke to Aristophanes, and of which Jowett observes that nothing in

Aristophanes is more truly Aristophanic.

The original human nature, he says, was not like the present. The Primeval

Man was round, [7] his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four

hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set

on a round neck and precisely alike. He could walk upright as men now do,

backward or forward as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at

a great rate, whirling round on his four hands and four feet, eight in

all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this

was when he wanted to run fast. Terrible was their might and strength, and

the thoughts of their hearts great, and they made an attack upon the gods;

of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes, who, as Homer says, dared

to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in

the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with

thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of

the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other

hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At

last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said;

"Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and mend their

manners; they shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two, which

will have a double advantage, for it will halve their strength and we

shall have twice as many sacrifices. They shall walk upright on two legs,

and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them

again and they shall hop on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two,

"as you might split an egg with a hair."... After the division the two

parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together.... So ancient

is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our

original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of

us when separated is but the indenture of a man, having one side only,

like a flat-fish and he is always looking for his other half.

And when one of them finds his other half, the pair are lost in amazement

of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the

other's sight, as I may say, even for a minute: they will pass their whole

lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one

another. For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other

does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something

else, which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of

which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.

However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart

that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such

impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love

at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation.

It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.

"But to see her were to love her,

Love but her, and love for ever." [8]

Yet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse

does not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a

warm love has been won by faithful devotion.

Montaigne indeed declares that "Few have married for love without

repenting it." Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally

be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not

think either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to

the unfortunate Maid of Astolat, "I love not to be constrained to love,

for love must arise of the heart and not by constraint." [9]

Love defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by

the sea, "but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow." [10]

Love can be happy anywhere. Byron wished

"O that the desert were my dwelling-place,

With one fair Spirit for my minister,

That I might all forget the human race,

And, hating no one, love but only her."

And many will doubtless have felt

"O Love! what hours were thine and mine

In lands of Palm and Southern Pine,

In lands of Palm, of Orange blossom,

Of Olive, Aloe, and Maize and Vine."

What is true of space holds good equally of

time.

"In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed.

In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;

In halls, in gay attire is seen;

In hamlets, dances on the green.

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,

And men below, and saints above;

For love is heaven, and heaven is love." [11]

Even when, as among some Eastern races, Religion and Philosophy have

combined to depress Love, truth reasserts itself in popular sayings, as

for instance in the Turkish proverb, "All women are perfection, especially

she who loves you."

A French lady having once quoted to Abd-el-Kader the Polish proverb, "A

woman draws more with a hair of her head than a pair of oxen well

harnessed;" he answered with a smile, "The hair is unnecessary, woman is

powerful as fate."

But we like to think of Love rather as the Angel of Happiness than as a

ruling force: of the joy of home when "hearts are of each other sure."

"It is the secret sympathy,

The silver link, the silken tie,

Which heart to heart, and mind to mind

In body and in soul can bind." [12]

What Bacon says of a friend is even truer of a wife; there is "no man that

imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that

imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less."

Let some one we love come near us and

"At once it seems that something new or strange

Has passed upon the flowers, the trees, the ground;

Some slight but unintelligible change

On everything around." [13]

We might, I think, apply to love what Homer says of Fate:

"Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps

Not on the ground, but on the heads of men."

Love and Reason divide the life of man. We must give to each its due. If

it is impossible to attain to virtue by the aid of Reason without Love,

neither can we do so by means of Love alone without Reason.

Love, said Melanippides, "sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of

desire, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful things together."

No one indeed could complain now, with Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, that

Love has had no worshippers among the Poets. On the contrary, Love has

brought them many of their sweetest inspirations; none perhaps nobler or

more beautiful than Milton's description of Paradise:

"With thee conversing, I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change, all please alike.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet

With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower

Glistering with dew, fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers; and sweet the coming on

Of grateful evening mild; then silent night

With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,

And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:

But neither breath of morn when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun

On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower

Glistering with dew, nor fragrance after showers,

Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night

With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon

Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet."

Moreover, no one need despair of an ideal marriage. We unfortunately

differ so much in our tastes; love does so much to create love, that even

the humblest may hope for the happiest marriage if only he deserves it;

and Shakespeare speaks, as he does so often, for thousands when he says

"She is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearls,

The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold."

True love indeed will not be unreasonable or exacting.

"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind

That from the nursery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To war and arms I fly.

True! a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field,

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such

As you too shall adore,

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honor more." [14]

And yet

"Alas! how light a cause may move

Dissension between hearts that love!

Hearts that the world in vain had tried,

And sorrow but more closely tied,

That stood the storm, when waves were rough,

Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea,

When heaven was all tranquillity." [15]

For love is brittle. Do not risk even any little jar; it may be

"The little rift within the lute,

That by and by will make the music mute,

And ever widening slowly silence all." [16]

Love is delicate; "Love is hurt with jar and fret," and you might as well

expect a violin to remain in tune if roughly used, as Love to survive if

chilled or driven into itself. But what a pleasure to keep it alive by

"Little, nameless, unremembered acts

Of kindness and of love." [17]

"She whom you loved and chose," says Bondi,

"Is now your bride,

The gift of heaven, and to your trust consigned;

Honor her still, though not with passion blind;

And in her virtue, though you watch, confide.

Be to her youth a comfort, guardian, guide,

In whose experience she may safety find;

And whether sweet or bitter be assigned,

The joy with her, as well as pain divide.

Yield not too much if reason disapprove;

Nor too much force; the partner of your life

Should neither victim be, nor tyrant prove.

Thus shall that rein, which often mars the bliss

Of wedlock, scarce be felt; and thus your wife

Ne'er in the husband shall the lover miss." [18]

Every one is ennobled by true love--

"Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all." [19]

Perhaps no one ever praised a woman more gracefully in a sentence than

Steele when he said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that "to know her was a

liberal education;" but every woman may feel as she improves herself that

she is not only laying in a store of happiness for herself, but also

raising and blessing him whom she would most wish to see happy and good.

Love, true love, grows and deepens with time. Husband and wife, who are

married indeed, live

"By each other, till to love and live

Be one." [20]

For does it end with life. A mother's love knows no bounds.

"They err who tell us Love can die,

With life all other passions fly,

All others are but vanity.

In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,

Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;

Earthly these passions of the Earth;

They perish where they have their birth,

But Love is indestructible;

Its holy flame forever burneth,

From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;

Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,

At times deceived, at times opprest,

It here is tried and purified,

Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:

It soweth here with toil and care,

But the harvest time of Love is there.

"The mother when she meets on high

The Babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,

The day of woe, the watchful night,

For all her sorrow, all her tears,

An over-payment of delight?" [21]

As life wears on the love of husband or wife, of friends and of children,

becomes the great solace and delight of age. The one recalls the past, the

other gives interest to the future; and in our children, it has been truly

said, we live our lives again.

[1] _Filicaja_. Translated by Leigh Hunt.

[2] Not from passion itself.

[3] Pope.

[4] Wordsworth.

[5] Browne.

[6] Malory, _Morte d' Arthur_.

[7] I avail myself of Dr. Jowett's translation.

[8] Burns.

[9] Malory, _Morte d' Arthur_.

[10] Symonds.

[11] Scott.

[12] Scott.

[13] Trench.

[14] Lovelace.

[15] Moore.

[16] Tennyson.

[17] Wordsworth.

[18] Bondi. Tr. by Glassfors.

[19] Tennyson.

[20] Swinburne.

[21] Southey.

CHAPTER V.

ART.

"High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but

in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely,

whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the

utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and

directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle

emphasis. Art (caeteris paribus) is great in exact proportion to the

love of beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty

forfeit no atom of truth."--RUSKIN.

CHAPTER V.

ART.

The most ancient works of Art which we possess are representations of

animals, rude indeed, but often strikingly characteristic, engraved on, or

carved in, stag's-horn or bone; and found in English, French, and German

caves, with stone and other rude implements, and the remains of mammalia,

belonging apparently to the close of the glacial epoch: not only of the

deer, bear, and other animals now inhabiting temperate Europe, but of

some, such as the reindeer, the musk sheep, and the mammoth, which have

either retreated north or become altogether extinct. We may, I think,

venture to hope that other designs may hereafter be found, which will give

us additional information as to the manners and customs of our ancestors

in those remote ages.

Next to these in point of antiquity come the sculptures and paintings on

Assyrian and Egyptian tombs, temples, and palaces.

These ancient scenes, considered as works of art, have no doubt many

faults, and yet how graphically they tell their story! As a matter of fact

a king is not, as a rule, bigger than his soldiers, but in these

battle-scenes he is always so represented. We must, however, remember that

in ancient warfare the greater part of the fighting was, as a matter of

fact, done by the chiefs. In this respect the Homeric poems resemble the

Assyrian and Egyptian representations. At any rate, we see at a glance

which is the king, which are officers, which side is victorious, the

struggles and sufferings of the wounded, the flight of the enemy, the city

of refuge--so that he who runs may read; while in modern battle-pictures

the story is much less clear, and, indeed, the untrained eye sees for some

time little but scarlet and smoke.

These works assuredly possess a grandeur and dignity of their own, even

though they have not the beauty of later art.

In Greece Art reached a perfection which has never been excelled, and it

was more appreciated than perhaps it has ever been since.

At the time when Demetrius attacked the city of Rhodes, Protogenes was

painting a picture of Ialysus. "This," says Pliny, "hindered King

Demetrius from taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should burn the picture;

and not being able to fire the town on any other side, he was pleased

rather to spare the painting than to take the victory, which was already

in his hands. Protogenes, at that time, had his painting-room in a garden

out of the town, and very near the camp of the enemies, where he was daily

finishing those pieces which he had already begun, the noise of soldiers

not being capable of interrupting his studies. But Demetrius causing him

to be brought into his presence, and asking him what made him so bold as

to work in the midst of enemies, he answered the king, 'That he understood

the war which he made was against the Rhodians, and not against the

Arts.'"

With the decay of Greece, Art sank too, until it was revived in the

thirteenth century by Cimabue, since whose time its progress has been

triumphal.

Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human

happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the

mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.

"In true Art," says Ruskin, "the hand, the head, and the heart of man go

together. But Art is no recreation: it cannot be learned at spare moments,

nor pursued when we have nothing better to do."

It is not only in the East that great works, really due to study and

labor, have been attributed to magic.

Study and labor cannot make every man an artist, but no one can succeed in

art without them. In Art two and two do not make four, and no number of

little things will make a great one.

It has been said, and on high authority, that the end of art is to please.

But this is a very imperfect definition. It might as well be said that a

library is only intended for pleasure and ornament.

Art has the advantage of nature, in so far as it introduces a human

element, which is in some respects superior even to nature. "If," says

Plato, "you take a man as he is made by nature and compare him with

another who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear

the less beautitiful, because art is more accurate than nature."

Bacon also, in _The Advancement of Learning_, speaks of "the world being

inferior to the soul, by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit

of man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute

variety than can be found in the nature of things."

The poets tell us that Prometheus, having made a beautiful statue of

Minerva, the goddess was so delighted that she offered to bring down

anything from Heaven which could add to its perfection. Prometheus on this

prudently asked her to take him there, so that he might choose for

himself. This Minerva did, and Prometheus, finding that in heaven all

things were animated by fire, brought back a spark, with which he gave

life to his work.

In fact, Imitation is the means and not the end of Art. The story of

Zeuxis and Parrhasius is a pretty tale; but to deceive birds, or even man

himself, is but a trifling matter compared with the higher functions of

Art. To imitate the _Iliad_, says Dr. Young, is not imitating Homer, but

as Sir J. Reynolds adds, the more the artist studies nature "the nearer he

approaches to the true and perfect idea of art."

"Following these rules and using these precautions, when you have clearly

and distinctly learned in what good coloring consists, you cannot do

better than have recourse to Nature herself, who is always at hand, and in

comparison of whose true splendor the best colored pictures are but faint

and feeble." [1]

Art, indeed, must create as well as copy. As Victor Cousin well says, "The

ideal without the real lacks life; but the real without the ideal lacks

pure beauty. Both need to unite; to join hands and enter into alliance. In

this way the best work may be achieved. Thus beauty is an absolute idea,

and not a mere copy of imperfect Nature."

The grouping of the picture is of course of the utmost importance. Sir

Joshua Reynolds gives two remarkable cases to show how much any given

figure in a picture is affected by its surroundings. Tintoret in one of

his pictures has taken the Samson of Michael Angelo, put an eagle under

him, placed thunder and lightning in his right hand instead of the jawbone

of an ass, and thus turned him into a Jupiter. The second instance is even

more striking. Titian has copied the figure in the vault of the Sistine

Chapel which represents the Deity dividing light from darkness, and has

introduced it into his picture of the battle of Cadore, to represent a

general falling from his horse.

We must remember that so far as the eye is concerned, the object of the

artist is to train, not to deceive, and that his higher function has

reference rather to the mind than to the eye.

No doubt

"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." [2]

But all is not gold that glitters, flowers are not all arrayed like the

lily, and there is room for selection as well as representation.

"The true, the good, and the beautiful," says Cousin, "are but forms of

the infinite: what then do we really love in truth, beauty, and virtue? We

love the infinite himself. The love of the infinite substance is hidden

under the love of its forms. It is so truly the infinite which charms in

the true, the good, and the beautiful, that its manifestations alone do

not suffice. The artist is dissatisfied at the sight even of his greatest

works; he aspires still higher."

It is indeed sometimes objected that Landscape painting is not true to

nature; but we must ask, What is truth? Is the object to produce the same

impression on the mind as that created by the scene itself? If so, let any

one try to draw from memory a group of mountains, and he will probably

find that in the impression produced on his mind the mountains are loftier

and steeper, the valleys deeper and narrower, than in the actual reality.

A drawing, then, which was literally exact would not be true, in the sense

of conveying the same impression as Nature herself.

In fact, Art, says Goethe, is called Art simply because it is not Nature.

It is not sufficient for the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and

delineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something

higher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate

interpret, as well as copy.

Turner was never satisfied merely to reach to even the most glorious

scenery. He moved, and even suppressed, mountains.

A certain nobleman, we are told, was very anxious to see the model from

whom Guido painted his lovely female faces. Guido placed his

color-grinder, a big coarse man, in an attitude, and then drew a beautiful

Magdalen. "My dear Count," he said, "the beautiful and pure idea must be

in the mind, and then it is no matter what the model is."

Guido Reni, who painted St. Michael for the Church of the Capuchins at

Rome, wished that he "had the wings of an angel, to have ascended unto

Paradise, and there to have beheld the forms of those beautiful spirits,

from which I might have copied my Archangel. But not being able to mount

so high, it was in vain for me to seek for his resemblance here below; so

that I was forced to look into mine own mind, and into that idea of beauty

which I have formed in my own imagination." [3]

Science attempts, as far as the limited powers of Man permit, to reproduce

the actual facts in a manner which, however bald, is true in itself,

irrespective of time and scene. To do this she must submit to many

limitations; not altogether unvexatious, and not without serious

drawbacks. Art, on the contrary, endeavors to convey the impression of the

original under some especial aspect.

In some respects, Art gives a clearer and more vivid idea of an unknown

country than any description can convey. In literature rock may be rock,

but in painting it must be granite or slate, and not merely rock in

general.

It is remarkable that while artists have long recognized the necessity of

studying anatomy, and there has been from the commencement a professor of

anatomy in the Royal Academy, it is only of late years that any knowledge

of botany or geology has been considered desirable, and even now their

importance is by no means generally recognized.

Much has been written as to the relative merits of painting, sculpture,

and architecture. This, if it be not a somewhat unprofitable inquiry,

would at any rate be out of place here.

Architecture not only gives intense pleasure, but even the impression of

something ethereal and superhuman.

Madame de Staël described it as "frozen music;" and a cathedral is a

glorious specimen of "thought in stone," whose very windows are

transparent walls of gorgeous hues.

Caracci said that poets paint in their words and artists speak in their

works. The latter have indeed one great advantage, for a glance at a

statue or a painting will convey a more vivid idea than a long and minute

description.

Another advantage possessed by Art is that it is understood by all

civilized nations, whilst each has a separate language.

Even from a material point of view Art is most important. In a recent

address Sir F. Leighton has observed that the study of Art "is every day

becoming more important in relation to certain sides of the waning

material prosperity of the country. For the industrial competition between

this and other countries--a competition, keen and eager, which means to

certain industries almost a race for life--runs, in many cases, no longer

exclusively or mainly on the lines of excellence of material and solidity

of workmanship, but greatly nowadays on the lines of artistic charm and

beauty of design."

The highest service, however, that Art can accomplish for man is to become

"at once the voice of his nobler aspirations, and the steady

disciplinarian of his emotions; and it is with this mission, rather than

with any aesthetic perfection, that we are at present concerned." [4]

Science and Art are sisters, or rather perhaps they are like brother and

sister. The mission of Art is in some respects like that of woman. It is

not Hers so much to do the hard toil and moil of the world, as to surround

it with a halo of beauty, to convert work into pleasure.

In science we naturally expect progress, but in Art the case is not so

clear; and yet Sir Joshua Reynolds did not hesitate to express his

conviction that in the future "so much will painting improve, that the

best we can now achieve will appear like the work of children," and we may

hope that our power of enjoying it may increase in an equal ratio.

Wordsworth says that poets have to create the taste for their own works,

and the same is, in some degree at any rate, true of artists.

In one respect especially modern painters appear to have made a marked

advance, and one great blessing which in fact we owe to them is a more

vivid enjoyment of scenery.

I have of course no pretensions to speak with authority, but even in the

case of the greatest masters before Turner, the landscapes seem to me

singularly inferior to the figures. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us that

Gainsborough framed a kind of model of a landscape on his table, composed

of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he

magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water; and Sir Joshua

solemnly discusses the wisdom of such a proceeding. "How far it may be

useful in giving hints," he says, "the professors of landscape can best

determine," but he does not recommend it, and is disposed to think, on the

whole, the practice may be more likely to do harm than good!

In the picture of Ceyx and Alcyone, by Wilson, of whom Cunningham said

that, with Gainsborough, he laid the foundation of our School of

Landscape, the castle is said to have been painted from a pot of porter,

and the rock from a Stilton cheese. There is indeed another version of the

story, that the picture was sold for a pot of porter and a cheese, which,

however, does not give a higher idea of the appreciation of the art of

landscape at that date.

Until very recently the general feeling with reference to mountain scenery

has been that expressed by Tacitus. "Who would leave Asia or Africa or

Italy to go to Germany, a shapeless and unformed country, a harsh sky, and

melancholy aspect, unless indeed it was his native land?"

It is amusing to read the opinion of Dr. Beattie, in a special treatise on

_Truth, Poetry and Music_, written at the close of the last century, that

"The Highlands of Scotland are in general a melancholy country. Long

tracts of mountainous country, covered with dark heath, and often obscured

by misty weather; narrow valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by

precipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged, and a

climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amenities of

pasturage, nor the labors of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves

along the firths and lakes: the portentous noises which every change of

the wind is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks,

and caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by

the light of the moon: objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy,"

etc. [5]

Even Goldsmith regarded the scenery of the Highlands as dismal and

hideous. Johnson, we know, laid it down as an axiom that "the noblest

prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to

England"--a saying which throws much doubt on his distinction that the

Giant's Causeway was "worth seeing but not worth going to see." [6]

Madame de Staël declared, that though she would go 500 leagues to meet a

clever man, she would not care to open her window to see the Bay of

Naples.

Nor was the ancient absence of appreciation confined to scenery. Even

Burke, speaking of Stonehenge, says, "Stonehenge, neither for disposition

nor ornament, has anything admirable."

Ugly scenery, however, may in some cases have an injurious effect on the

human system. It has been ingeniously suggested that what really drove Don

Quixote out of his mind was not the study of his books of chivalry, so

much as the monotonous scenery of La Mancha.

The love of landscape is not indeed due to Art alone. It has been the

happy combination of art and science which has trained us to perceive the

beauty which surrounds us.

Art helps us to see, and "hundreds of people can talk for one who can

think; but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is

poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.... Remembering always that

there are two characters in which all greatness of Art consists--first,

the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those

facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look

upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus

great Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for as

the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world

about him, first sees nothing clearly, looks nothing fairly in the face,

and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent and

unescapable force of the things that he would not foresee and could not

understand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in

the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in

unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human

intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent in consummating

their good and restraining their evil." [7]

May we not also hope that in this respect also still further progress may

be made, that beauties may be revealed, and pleasures may be in store for

those who come after us, which we cannot appreciate, or at least can but

faintly feel.

Even now there is scarcely a cottage without something more or less

successfully claiming to rank as Art,--a picture, a photograph, or a

statuette; and we may fairly hope that much as Art even now contributes to

the happiness of life, it will do so even more effectively in the future.

[1] Reynolds.

[2] Shakespeare.

[3] Dryden.

[4] Haweis.

[5] Beattie, 1776.

[6] Boswell.

[7] Ruskin.

CHAPTER VI.

POETRY.

"And here the singer for his Art

Not all in vain may plead;

The song that nerves a nation's heart

Is in itself a deed."

TENNYSON.

CHAPTER VI.

POETRY.

After the disastrous defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, Plutarch

tells us that the Sicilians spared those who could repeat any of the

poetry of Euripides.

"Some there were," he says, "who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of

all the Grecians, his was the muse with whom the Sicilians were most in

love. From the strangers who landed in their island they gleaned every

small specimen or portion of his works, and communicated it with pleasure

to each other. It is said that upon this occasion a number of Athenians on

their return home went to Euripides, and thanked him in the most grateful

manner for their obligations to his pen; some having been enfranchised for

teaching their masters what they remembered of his poems, and others

having procured refreshments, when they were wandering about after the

battle, by singing a few of his verses."

Nowadays we are none of us likely to owe our lives to Poetry in this

sense, yet in another we many of us owe to it a similar debt. How often,

when worn with overwork, sorrow, or anxiety, have we taken down Homer or

Horace, Shakespeare or Milton, and felt the clouds gradually roll away,

the jar of nerves subside, the consciousness of power replace physical

exhaustion, and the darkness of despondency brighten once more into the

light of life.

"And yet Plato," says Jowett, "expels the poets from his Republic because

they are allied to sense; because they stimulate the emotions; because

they are thrice removed from the ideal truth."

In that respect, as in some others, few would accept Plato's Republic as

being an ideal Commonwealth, and most would agree with Sir Philip Sidney

that "if you cannot bear the planet-like music of poetry ... I must send

you in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and

never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your

memory die from the earth, for want of an epitaph."

Poetry has often been compared with painting and sculpture. Simonides long

ago said that Poetry is a speaking picture, and painting is mute Poetry.

"Poetry," says Cousin, "is the first of the Arts because it best

represents the infinite."

And again, "Though the arts are in some respects isolated, yet there is

one which seems to profit by the resources of all, and that is Poetry.

With words, Poetry can paint and sculpture; she can build edifices like an

architect; she unites, to some extent, melody and music. She is, so to

say, the center in which all arts unite."

A true poem is a gallery of pictures.

It must, I think, be admitted that painting and sculpture can give us a

clearer and more vivid idea of an object we have never seen than any

description can convey. But when we have once seen it, then on the

contrary there are many points which the poet brings before us, and which

perhaps neither in the representation, nor even in nature, should we

perceive for ourselves. Objects can be most vividly brought before us by

the artist, actions by the poet; space is the domain of Art, time of

Poetry. [1]

Take, for instance, as a typical instance, female beauty. How labored and

how cold any description appears. The greatest poets recognize this; as,

for instance, when Scott wishes us to realize the Lady of the Lake he does

not attempt any description, but just mentions her attitude and then

adds--

"And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace

A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,

Of finer form or lovelier face!"

A great poet indeed must be inspired; he must possess an exquisite sense

of beauty, and feelings deeper than those of most men, and yet well under

his control. "The Milton of poetry is the man, in his own magnificent

phrase, of devout prayer to that eternal spirit that can enrich with all

utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire

of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." [2] And if

from one point of view Poetry brings home to us the immeasurable

inequalities of different minds, on the other hand it teaches us that

genius is no affair of rank or wealth.

"I think of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,

The sleepless soul, that perish'd in his pride;

Of Burns, that walk'd in glory and in joy

Behind his plough upon the mountain-side." [3]

A man may be a poet and yet write no verse, but not if he writes bad or

poor ones.

"Mediocribus esse poetis

Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae." [4]

Second-rate poets, like second-rate writers generally, fade gradually into

dreamland; but the great poets remain always.

Poetry will not live unless it be alive, "that which comes from the head

goes to the heart;" [5] and Milton truly said that "he who would not be

frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought

himself to be a true poem."

For "he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to

the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of Art--he, I

say, and his Poetry are not admitted." [6]

But the work of the true poet is immortal.

"For have not the verses of Homer continued 2500 years or more without the

loss of a syllable or a letter, during which time infinite palaces,

temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not

possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar,

no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the

originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of the life and

truth. But the images of men's wits and knowledge remain in books,

exempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation.

Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still

and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing

infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages: so that if the invention

of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities

from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in

participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified,

which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time and make ages so

distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the

one of the other?" [7]

The poet requires many qualifications. "Who has traced," says Cousin, "the

plan of this poem? Reason. Who has given it life and charm? Love. And who

has guided reason and love? The Will."

"All men have some imagination, but

The Lover and the Poet

Are of imagination all compact.

* * * * *

"The Poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name." [8]

Poetry is the fruit of genius; but it cannot be produced without labor.

Moore, one of the airiest of poets, tells us that he was a slow and

painstaking workman.

The works of our greatest Poets are all episodes in that one great poem

which the genius of man has created since the commencement of human

history.

A distinguished mathematician is said once to have inquired what was

proved by Milton in his _Paradise Lost_; and there are no doubt still some

who ask themselves, even if they shrink from putting the question to

others, whether Poetry is of any use, just as if to give pleasure were not

useful in itself. No true Utilitarian, however, would feel this doubt,

since the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the rule of his

philosophy.

"We must not estimate the works of genius merely with reference to the

pleasure they afford, even when pleasure was their principal object. We

must also regard the intelligence which they presuppose and exercise." [9]

Thoroughly to enjoy Poetry we must not so limit ourselves, but must rise

to a higher ideal.

"Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really

excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be

present in our minds, and should govern our estimate of what we

read." [10]

Cicero, in his oration for Archias, well asked, "Has not this man then a

right to my love, to my admiration, to all the means which I can employ in

his defence? For we are instructed by all the greatest and most learned of

mankind, that education, precepts, and practice, can in every other branch

of learning produce excellence. But a poet is formed by the hand of

nature; he is aroused by mental vigor, and inspired by what we may call

the spirit of divinity itself. Therefore our Ennius has a right to give to

poets the epithet of Holy, [11] because they are, as it were, lent to

mankind by the indulgent bounty of the gods."

"Poetry," says Shelley, "awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering

it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought.

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes

familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that

it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand

thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as

memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all

thoughts and actions with which it co-exists."

And again, "All high Poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which

contained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the

inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed. A great poem is a

fountain forever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight."

Or, as he has expressed himself in his Ode to a Skylark:

"Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

"Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

"Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view."

We speak now of the poet as the Maker or Creator--[Greek: poiaetaes]; the

origin of the word "bard" seems doubtful.

The Hebrews well called their poets "Seers," for they not only perceive

more than others, but also help other men to see much which would

otherwise be lost to us. The old Greek word was [Greek: aoidos]--the Bard

or Singer.

Poetry lifts the veil from the beauty of the world which would otherwise

be hidden, and throws over the most familiar objects the glow and halo of

imagination. The man who has a love for Poetry can scarcely fail to derive

intense pleasure from Nature, which to those who love it is all "beauty to

the eye and music to the ear."

"Yet Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets

have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling

flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more

lovely." [12]

In the smokiest city the poet will transport us, as if by enchantment, to

the fresh air and bright sun, to the murmur of woods and leaves and water,

to the ripple of waves upon sand, and enable us, as in some delightful

dream, to cast off the cares and troubles of life.

The poet, indeed, must have more true knowledge, not only of human nature,

but of all Nature, than other men are gifted with.

Crabbe Robinson tells us that when a stranger once asked permission to see

Wordsworth's study, the maid said, "This is master's Library, but he

studies in the fields." No wonder then that Nature has been said to return

the poet's love.

"Call it not vain;-they do not err

Who say that, when the poet dies,

Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,

And celebrates his obsequies." [13]

Swinburne says of Blake, and I feel entirely with him, though in my case

the application would have been different, that "The sweetness of sky and

leaf, of grass and water--the bright light life of bird, child, and

beast--is, so to speak, kept fresh by some graver sense of faithful and

mysterious love, explained and vivified by a conscience and purpose in the

artist's hand and mind. Such a fiery outbreak of spring, such an

insurrection of fierce floral life and radiant riot of childish power and

pleasure, no poet or painter ever gave before; such lustre of green leaves

and flushed limbs, kindled cloud and fervent fleece, was never wrought

into speech or shape."

To appreciate Poetry we must not merely glance at it, or rush through it,

or read it in order to talk or write about it. One must compose oneself

into the right frame of mind. Of course for one's own sake one will read

Poetry in times of agitation, sorrow, or anxiety, but that is another

matter.

The inestimable treasures of Poetry again are open to all of us. The best

books are indeed the cheapest. For the price of a little beer, a little

tobacco, we can buy Shakespeare or Milton--or indeed almost as many books

as a man can read with profit in a year.

Nor, in considering the advantage of Poetry to man, must we limit

ourselves to its past or present influence. The future of Poetry, says Mr.

Matthew Arnold, and no one was more qualified to speak, "The future of

Poetry is immense, because in Poetry, where it is worthy of its high

destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer

stay. But for Poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of

illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the

idea _is_ the fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its

unconscious Poetry. We should conceive of Poetry worthily, and more highly

than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as

capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies than those which in

general men have assigned to it hitherto."

Poetry has been well called the record "of the best and happiest moments

of the happiest and best minds;" it is the light of life, the very "image

of life expressed in its eternal truth;" it immortalizes all that is best

and most beautiful in the world; "it purges from our inward sight the film

of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being;" "it is the

center and circumference of knowledge;" and poets are "mirrors of the

gigantic shadows which futurity caste upon the present."

Poetry, in effect, lengthens life; it creates for us time, if time be

realized as the succession of ideas and not of minutes; it is the "breath

and finer spirit of all knowledge;" it is bound neither by time nor space,

but lives in the spirit of man. What greater praise can be given than the

saying that life should be Poetry put into action.

[1] See Lessing's _Laocoön_.

[2] Arnold.

[3] Coleridge.

[4] Horace.

[5] Wordsworth.

[6] Plato.

[7] Bacon.

[8] Shakespeare.

[9] St. Hailare.

[10] Arnold.

[11] Plato styles poets the sons and interpreters of the gods.

[12] Sydney, _Defence of Poetry_.

[13] Scott.

CHAPTER VII.

MUSIC.

"Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the

mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life

to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is

good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but

nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form."--PLATO.

CHAPTER VII.

MUSIC.

Music is in one sense far more ancient than man, and the voice was from

the very commencement of human existence a source of melody: but so far as

musical instruments are concerned, it is probable that percussion came

first, then wind instruments, and lastly, those with strings: first the

Drum, then the Flute, and thirdly, the Lyre. The early history of Music

is, however, unfortunately wrapped in much obscurity. The use of letters

long preceded the invention of notes, and tradition in such a matter can

tell us but little.

The contest between Marsyas and Apollo is supposed by some to typify the

struggle between the Flute and the Lyre; Marsyas representing the archaic

Flute, Apollo the champion of the Lyre. The latter of course was

victorious: it sets the voice free, and the sound

"Of music that is born of human breath

Comes straighter to the soul than any strain

The hand alone can make." [1]

Various myths have grown up to explain the origin of Music. One Greek

tradition was to the effect Grasshoppers were human beings themselves in a

world before the Muses; that when the Muses came, being ravished with

delight, they sang and sang and forgot to eat, until "they died of hunger

for the love of song. And they carry to heaven the report of those who

honor them on earth." [2]

The old writers and commentators tell us that Pythagoras, "as he was one

day meditating on the want of some rule to guide the ear, analogous to

what had been used to help the other senses, chanced to pass by a

blacksmith's shop, and observing that the hammers, which were four in

number, sounded very harmoniously, he had them weighed, and found them to

be in the proportion of six, eight, nine, and twelve. Upon this he

suspended four strings of equal length and thickness, etc., fastened

weights in the above-mentioned proportions to each of them respectively,

and found that they gave the same sounds that the hammers had done; viz.

the fourth, fifth, and octave to the gravest tone." [3] However this may

be, it would appear that the lyre had at first four strings only:

Terpander is said to have given it three more, and an eighth was

subsequently added.

We have unfortunately no specimens of Greek or Roman, or even of Early

Christian music. The Chinese indicated the notes by words or their

initials. The lowest was termed "Koung," or the Emperor, as being the

Foundation on which all were supported; the second was Tschang, the Prime

Minister; the third, the Subject; the fourth, Public Business; the fifth,

the Mirror of Heaven. [4] The Greeks also had a name for each note. The

so-called Gregorian notes were not invented until six hundred years after

Gregory's death. The Monastery of St. Gall possesses a copy of Gregory's

Antiphonary, made about the year 780 by a chorister who was sent from Rome

to Charlemagne to reform the Northern music, and in this the notes are

indicated by "pneumss," from which our notes were gradually developed, and

first arranged along one line, to which others were gradually added. But I

must not enlarge on this interesting subject.

In the matter of music Englishmen have certainly deserved well of the

world. Even as long ago as 1185 Giraldus Cambrensis, Bishop of St.

David's, says, "The Britons do not sing their tunes in unison like the

inhabitants of other countries, but in different parts. So that when a

company of singers meet to sing, as is usual in this country, as many

different parts are heard as there are singers." [5]

The most ancient known piece of music for several voices is an English

four men's song, "Summer is a coming in," which is considered to be at

least as early as 1240, and is now in the British Museum.

The Venetian Ambassador in the time of Henry VIII. said of our English

Church music: "The mass was sung by His Majesty's choristers, whose voices

are more heavenly than human; they did not chant like men, but like

angels."

Speaking of Purcell's anthem, "Be merciful to me, O God," Burney says it

is "throughout admirable. Indeed, to my conception there is no better

music existing of the kind than the opening of this anthem, in which the

verse 'I will praise God' and the last movement in C natural are, in

melody, harmony, and modulation, truly divine music."

Dr. Burney says that Purcell was "as much the pride of an Englishman in

music as Shakespeare in productions of the stage, Milton in epic poetry,

Locke in metaphysics, or Sir Isaac Newton in philosophy and mathematics;"

and yet Purcell's music is unfortunately but little known to us now, as

Macfarren says, "to our great loss."

The authors of some of the loveliest music, and even in some cases that of

comparatively recent times, are unknown to us. This is the case for

instance with the exquisite song "Drink to me only with thine eyes," the

words of which were taken by Jonson from Philostratus, and which has been

considered as the most beautiful of all "people's songs."

The music of "God save the Queen" has been adopted in more than half a

dozen other countries, and yet the authorship is a matter of doubt, being

attributed by some to Dr. John Bull, by others to Carey. It was apparently

first sung in a tavern in Cornhill.

Both the music and words of "O Death, rock me to sleep" are said to be by

Anne Boleyn: "Stay, Corydon" and "Sweet Honey-sucking Bees" by Wildye,

"the first of madrigal writers." "Rule Britannia" was composed by Arne,

and originally formed part of his Masque of _Alfred_, first performed in

1740 at Cliefden, near Maidenhead. To Arne we are also indebted for the

music of "Where the Bee sucks there lurk I." "The Vicar of Bray" is set to

a tune originally known as "A Country Garden." "Come unto these yellow

sands" we owe to Purcell; "Sigh no more, Ladies" to Stevens; "Home, Sweet

Home" to Bishop.

There is a curious melancholy in national music which is generally in the

minor key; indeed this holds good with the music of savage races

generally. They appear, moreover, to have no love Songs.

Herodotus tells us that during the whole time he was in Egypt he only

heard one song, and that was a sad one. My own experience there was the

same. Some tendency to melancholy seems indeed inherent in music, and

Jessica is not alone in the feeling

"I am never merry when I hear sweet music."

The epitaphs on Musicians have been in some cases very well expressed.

Such, for instance, is the following:

"Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove

The pangs of guilty power and hapless love,

Rest here, distressed by poverty no more;

Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;

Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine,

Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"

Still more so that on Purcell, whose premature death was so irreparable a

loss to English music--

"Here lies Henry Purcell, who left this life, and is gone to that

blessed place, where only his harmony can be exceeded."

The histories of Music contain many curious anecdotes as to the

circumstances under which different works have been composed.

Rossini tells us that he wrote the overture to the "Gazza Ladra" on the

very day of the first performance, in the upper loft of the La Scala,

where he had been confined by the manager under the guard of four

scene-shifters, who threw the text out of the window to copyists bit by

bit as it was composed. Tartini is said to have composed "Il trillo del

Diavolo," considered to be his best work, in a dream. Rossini, speaking of

the chorus in G minor in his "Dal tuo stellato soglio," tells us: "While I

was writing the chorus in G minor I suddenly dipped my pen into a medicine

bottle instead of the ink. I made a blot, and when I dried this with the

sand it took the form of a natural, which instantly gave me the idea of

the effect the change from G minor to G major would make, and to this blot

is all the effect, if any, due." But these of course are exceptional

cases.

There are other forms of Music, which though not strictly entitled to the

name, are yet capable of giving intense pleasure. To the sportsman what

Music can excel that of the hounds themselves. The cawing of rooks has

been often quoted as a sound which has no actual beauty of its own, and

yet which is delightful from its associations.

There is, however, a true Music of Nature,--the song of birds, the whisper

of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or

sea.

There was also an ancient impression that the Heavenly bodies give out

music as well as light: the Music of the Spheres is proverbial.

"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;

Such harmony is in immortal souls

But while this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." [6]

Music indeed often seems as if it scarcely belonged to this material

universe, but was

"A tone

Of some world far from ours,

Where music, and moonlight, and feeling are one." [7]

There is Music in speech as well as in song. Not merely in the voice of

those we love, and the charm of association, but in actual melody; as

Milton says,

"The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear

So charming left his voice, that he awhile

Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."

It is remarkable that more pains are not taken with the voice in

conversation as well as in singing, for

"What plea so tainted and corrupt

But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,

Obscures the show of evil."

It may be true as a general rule that

"The man that hath no Music in himself

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;" [8]

but there are some notable exceptions. Dr. Johnson had no love of music.

On one occasion, hearing that a certain piece of music was very difficult,

he expressed his regret that it was not impossible.

Poets, as might have been expected, have sung most sweetly in praise of

song. They have, moreover, done so from the most opposite points of view.

Milton invokes it as a luxury--

"And ever against eating cares

Lap me in soft Lydian airs;

Married to immortal verse

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,

In notes with many a winding bout

Of linked sweetness long drawn out;

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running;

Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony."

Sometimes as a temptation; so Spenser says of Phaedria,

"And she, more sweet than any bird on bough

Would oftentimes amongst them bear a part,

And strive to passe (as she could well enough)

Their native musicke by her skilful art."

Or as an element of pure happiness--

"There is in Souls a sympathy with sounds;

And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased

With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;

Some chord in unison with what we hear

Is touched within us, and the heart replies.

How soft the music of those village bells,

Falling at intervals upon the ear

In cadence sweet, now dying all away,

Now pealing loud again and louder still

Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on." [9]

As touching the human heart--

"The soul of music slumbers in the shell,

Till waked and kindled by the master's spell,

And feeling hearts--touch them but lightly--pour

A thousand melodies unheard before." [10]

As an education--

"I have sent books and music there, and all

Those instruments with which high spirits call

The future from its cradle, and the past

Out of its grave, and make the present last

In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,

Folded within their own eternity." [11]

As an aid to religion--

"As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move,

And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the blessed above,

So when the last and dreadful hour

This crumbling pageant shall devour,

The trumpet shall be heard on high.

The dead shall live, the living die,

And music shall untune the sky." [12]

Or again--

"Hark how it falls! and now It steals along,

Like distant bells upon the lake at eve.

When all is still; and now it grows more strong

As when the choral train their dirges weave

Mellow and many voiced; where every close

O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows.

Oh! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars

Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind;

Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,

And floating paeans fill the buoyant wind.

Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed."

The power of Music to sway the feelings of Man has never been more

cleverly portrayed than by Dryden in "The Feast of Alexander," though the

circumstances of the case precluded any reference to the influence of

Music in its noblest aspects.

Poets have always attributed to Music--and who would wish to deny it?--a

power even over the inanimate forces of Nature. Shakespeare accounts for

shooting stars by the attraction of Music:

"The rude sea grew civil at her song,

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres

To hear the Sea-maid's music."

Prose writers have also been inspired by Music to their highest eloquence.

"Music," says Plato, "is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,

wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety

and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that

is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but

nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form." "Music," said

Luther, "is a fair and glorious gift from God. I would not for the world

renounce my humble share in music." "Music," said Halevy, "is an art that

God has given us, in which the voices of all nations may unite their

prayers in one harmonious rhythm." Or Carlyle, "Music is a kind of

inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the

infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into it."

Let me also quote Helmholtz, one of the profoundest exponents of modern

science. "Just as in the rolling ocean, this movement, rhythmically

repeated, and yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and hurries us along.

But whereas in the sea blind physical forces alone are at work, and hence

the final impression on the spectator's mind is nothing but solitude--in a

musical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own

emotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently

stirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression

of passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into

the hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his

own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of

which God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be the heralds."

"There are but seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen," says Newman,

"yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings

so much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master

in it create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant

inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game of

fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?... Is it possible

that that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so

simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should

be a mere sound, which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those

mysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange

yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not

whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and

goes, and begins and ends in itself? it is not so; it cannot be. No; they

have escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal

harmony in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home;

they are the voices of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living

laws of Divine Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they

besides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter, though

mortal man, and he perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows,

has the gift of eliciting them."

Poetry and Music unite in song. From the earliest ages song has been the

sweet companion of labor. The rude chant of the boatman floats upon the

water, the shepherd sings upon the hill, the milkmaid in the dairy, the

ploughman at the plough. Every trade, every occupation, every act and

scene of life, has long had its own especial music. The bride went to her

marriage, the laborer to his work, the old man to his last long rest, each

with appropriate and immemorial music.

Music has been truly described as the mother of sympathy, the handmaid of

Religion, and will never exercise its full effect, as the Emperor Charles

VI. said to Farinelli, unless it aims not merely to charm the ear, but to

touch the heart.

There are many who consider that our life at present is peculiarly prosaic

and mercenary. I greatly doubt whether that be the case, but if so our

need for Music is all the more imperative.

Much as Music has already done for man, we may hope even more from it in

the future.

It is, moreover, a joy for all. To appreciate Science or Art requires some

training, and no doubt the cultivated ear will more and more appreciate

the beauties of Music; but though there are exceptional individuals, and

even races, almost devoid of any love of Music, still they are happily but

rare.

Good Music, moreover, does not necessarily involve any considerable

outlay; it is even now no mere luxury of the rich, and we may hope that as

time goes on, it will become more and more the comfort and solace of the

poor.

[1] Morris.

[2] Plato.

[3] Crowest.

[4] _Rowbotham, History of Music_.

[5] Wakefield.

[6] Shakespeare.

[7] Swinburne.

[8] Shakespeare.

[9] Cowper.

[10] Rogers.

[11] Shelley.

[12] Dryden.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

"Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee."

JOB.

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

We are told in the first chapter of Genesis that at the close of the sixth

day "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

Not merely good, but very good. Yet how few of us appreciate the beautiful

world in which we live!

In preceding chapters I have incidentally, though only incidentally,

referred to the Beauties of Nature; but any attempt, however imperfect, to

sketch the blessings of life must contain some special reference to this

lovely world itself, which the Greeks happily called [Greek: chosmos]

--beauty.

Hamerton, in his charming work on _Landscape_, says, "There are, I

believe, four new experiences for which no description ever adequately

prepares us, the first sight of the sea, the first journey in the desert,

the sight of flowing molten lava, and a walk on a great glacier. We feel

in each case that the strange thing is pure nature, as much nature as a

familiar English moor, yet so extraordinary that we might be in another

planet." But it would, I think, be easier to enumerate the Wonders of

Nature for which description can prepare us, than those which are

altogether beyond the power of language.

Many of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in

it, but not of it. We have "eyes and see not, ears and hear not." To look

is much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see,

is a great gift. Ruskin maintains that "The greatest thing a human soul

ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a

plain way." I do not suppose that his eyes are better than ours, but how

much more he sees with them!

We must look before we can expect to see. "To the attentive eye," says

Emerson, "each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same

field it beholds every hour a picture that was never seen before, and

shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment and reflect

their glory or gloom on the plains beneath."

The love of Nature is a great gift, and if it is frozen or crushed out,

the character can hardly fail to suffer from the loss. I will not, indeed,

say that a person who does not love Nature is necessarily bad; or that one

who does, is necessarily good; but it is to most minds a great help. Many,

as Miss Cobbe says, enter the Temple through the gate called Beautiful.

There are doubtless some to whom none of the beautiful wonders of Nature;

neither the glories of the rising or setting sun; the magnificent

spectacle of the boundless ocean, sometimes so grand in its peaceful

tranquillity, at others so majestic in its mighty power; the forests

agitated by the storm, or alive with the song of birds; nor the glaciers

and mountains--there are doubtless some whom none of these magnificent

spectacles can move, whom "all the glories of heaven and earth may pass in

daily succession without touching their hearts or elevating their

minds." [1]

Such men are indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can

none of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are

beginning to do so more and more.

For most of us the early summer has a special charm. The very life is

luxury. The air is full of scent, and sound, and sunshine, of the song of

birds and the murmur of insects; the meadows gleam with golden buttercups,

it almost seems as if one could see the grass grow and the buds open; the

bees hum for very joy, and the air is full of a thousand scents, above all

perhaps that of new-mown hay.

The exquisite beauty and delight of a fine summer day in the country has

never perhaps been more truly, and therefore more beautifully, described

than by Jefferies in his "Pageant of Summer." "I linger,'" he says, "in

the midst of the long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the

very air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine

gives and the south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless

leaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of

finch and blackbird; from all of them I receive a little.... In the

blackbird's melody one note is mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows the

formed maze is for me, though the motion is theirs; the flowers with a

thousand faces have collected the kisses of the morning. Feeling with

them, I receive some, at least, of their fulness of life. Never could I

have enough; never stay long enough.... The hours when the mind is

absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the

longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from

inevitable Time.... These are the only hours that are not wasted-these

hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and

all else is illusion, or mere endurance. To be beautiful and to be calm,

without mental fear, is the ideal of Nature. If I cannot achieve it, at

least I can think it."

This chapter is already so long that I cannot touch on the contrast and

variety of the seasons, each with its own special charm and interest, as

"The daughters of the year

Dance into light and die into the shade." [2]

Our countrymen derive great pleasure from the animal kingdom, in hunting,

shooting, and fishing, thus obtaining fresh air and exercise, and being

led into much varied and beautiful scenery. Still it will probably ere

long be recognized that even from a purely selfish point of view, killing

animals is not the way to get the greatest enjoyment from them. How much

more interesting would every walk in the country be, if Man would but

treat other animals with kindness, so that they might approach us without

fear, and we might have the constant pleasure of watching their winning

ways. Their origin and history, structure and habits, senses and

intelligence, offer an endless field of interest and wonder.

The richness of life is wonderful. Any one who will sit down quietly on

the grass and watch a little will be indeed surprised at the number and

variety of living beings, every one with a special history of its own,

every one offering endless problems of great interest.

"If indeed thy heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a

mirror of lifer and a book of holy doctrine." [3]

The study of Natural History has the special advantage of carrying us into

the country and the open air.

Not but what towns are beautiful too. They teem with human interest and

historical associations.

Wordsworth was an intense lover of nature; yet does he not tell us, in

lines which every Londoner will appreciate, that he knew nothing in nature

more fair, no calm more deep, than the city of London at early dawn?

"Earth has not anything to show more fair;

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at its own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!"

Milton also described London as

"Too blest abode, no loveliness we see

In all the earth, but it abounds in thee."

But after being some time in a great city, one feels a longing for the

country.

"The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,

The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him are opening paradise." [4]

Here Gray justly places flowers in the first place, for when in any great

town we think of the country, flowers seem first to suggest themselves.

"Flowers," says Ruskin, "seem intended for the solace of ordinary

humanity. Children love them; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people

love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them

gathered. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town mark,

as with a little broken fragment of rainbow the windows of the workers in

whose heart rest the covenant of peace." But in the crowded street, or

even in the formal garden, flowers always seem, to me at least, as if they

were pining for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they can live

and grow as they please.

There are flowers for almost all seasons and all places. Flowers for

spring, summer, and autumn, while even in the very depth of winter here

and there one makes its appearance. There are flowers of the fields and

woods and hedgerows, of the seashore and the lake's margin, of the

mountain-side up to the very edge of the eternal snow.

And what an infinite variety they present.

"Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,

Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,

That die unmarried, ere they can behold

Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady

Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and

The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,

The flower-de-luce being one." [5]

Nor are they mere delights to the eye; they are full of mystery and

suggestions. They almost seem like enchanted princesses waiting for some

princely deliverer. Wordsworth tells us that

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Every color again, every variety of form, has some purpose and

explanation.