different relative prominence] in different objects.' Yet, whatever may be their ultimate and real character, whether of kinship or of oneness, they differ in aspect. A homely face may be endeared to us by its light of genius, its glow of sympathy, and loveliness of heart, but we shall not be brought to pronounce it, in itself, beautiful, though attractive. The good, again, proposes an end to be accomplished, and involves the idea of moral obligation, while the beautiful proposes no end, carries no obligation, but is purely free and spontaneous. The true is addressed, not to the senses, but to the reason.

One of the most remarkable things in the world is the abundance of beauty of what not only serves material needs, but feeds and comforts the finer and nicer faculties of man. The commonest things are adorned, not with ornament that is put on, but with that which grows out of their substance, which affects their form and shines through every lineament:

Therefore on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the midforest brake
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.-Keats.

Only to spirit can spirit be intelligible. The shining of the Eternal-its richness, nobleness, purity, will be lost. upon us, without an inward appetite therefor. To find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, else a world-wide search will not discover it. To the unkindled mind the face of nature is darkness, and art is void of charm. 'He,' says Lord Jeffery, 'will always see the most beauty whose affections are warmest and most exercised, whose imagination is the most powerful, and who has the most accustomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded.' To a Wordsworth, the meanest thing that grows gives thoughts too deep for tears.

Sensibility to the beautiful-competence to feel the invisible in the visible, is a liberalizing and civilizing power. The more of it, as thus defined, is ever the more of the true. The higher and more varied its culture, the more is the culture of the intellect drawn in and constrained. Its stimulating sunshine refines, purifies, and expands the moral feelings also, just as companionship with the ugly, false, and vicious, corrupts, stupefies, and degrades them. To the action of every other faculty it imparts vividness and grace. Highly gifted with it, men become creative, upborne and inspired by the ideal, which burns as a transfiguring flame. Without it, science is cramped and poor, religion is narrow, life unripened and fractional.

The nature of man, indeed, from childhood, and from the humblest conditions, seems, as it were, ever to cry aloud for some sign or token of what is beautiful in some of the many spheres of mind or sense. But too often the fructifying instinct languishes and dies, because overlaid by the nicknacks and other rubbish of Vanity Fair, because of the too hard stress of bodily want, or the pressure of excessive business. Men postpone their manhood till they have an estate, then find that the estate rides them. They

eat and drink, that they may afterward execute the ideal. Would it not be better,' says Emerson, 'to begin higher up,- to serve the ideal before they eat and drink, to serve the ideal in eating and drinking, in drawing the breath, and in the functions of life? Beauty must come back to

the useful arts, and the distinction between the fine and the useful arts be forgotten. If history were truly told, if life were nobly spent, it would be no longer easy or possible to distinguish the one from the other. In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful.'

CHAPTER XIV.

ÆSTHETICS OF EXPRESSION—THE SUBLIME.

The soul is naturally elevated by the true sublime, and, lifted up with exultation, is filled with transport and inward pride.- LONGINUS.

The beautiful has reference to the form of an object, and the facility with which it is comprehended. For beauty, magnitude is an impediment. Sublimity, on the contrary, requires magnitude as its condition, and the formless is not unfrequently sublime.- SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.

ANY

NY object, thought, or emotion, which conveys an impression of surpassing greatness or power, is sublime. The tempest-tossed ocean, the roaring and impassable cataract, the shout of a multitude, eclipses, thunder, and abysses, depth beyond depth of the starry heavens, lands swept with hurricanes, the wide expanse of earth, barren with moor or waving with corn and forest, stand, with other similar scenes, in the first rank of material sublimity. Unflinching courage, towering ambition, victory over self, uncommon intrepidity and perfect composure in some critical and high situation, as devotion to truth in defiance of popular fury, or the deliberate measurement of the death-doom, are types of sublimity in the moral world. Of this description are the historic words of Cæsar to the terrified pilot, 'What fear you? You carry Cæsar'; of Hildebrand, who, dying at Salerno after a long and bitter struggle, said, 'I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile'; of Luther on departing for Worms, "Though there were as many devils in Worms as tiles on the housetops, still I would enter'; of Raleigh, as he felt the edge of the axe before laying his head on the block, ‘It is a

sharp remedy, but will cure all diseases'; of Sidney, as he motioned away the water to the expiring soldier, 'Thy necessity is greater than mine'; of Gilbert, going down at sea, 'Never mind, we are as near heaven at sea as ashore'; of Nelson, on the eve of battle, 'England expects every man to do his duty'; of Napoleon, 'Soldiers, from the summits of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you'; of the martyred Latimer to his companion at the stake, as the lighted faggots were brought, 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man: we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.'

Every one is conscious that the effect produced by the contemplation of such things is peculiar-pleasurable, indeed, but altogether of the serious kind, marked even by a degree of awfulness and solemnity at its height; an elevation and expansion of the mind much above and beyond its ordinary state. Thus a chief test of the sublime is that it banishes littleness of thought and feeling. In the domain of the physical, most objects of sublimity, it will be readily seen, excite emotions of a mixed nature, humiliation and awe, perhaps, or aspiring purpose, overcoming the timid and feeble, rousing the lofty and daring. Witness the exultation of Byron in an Alpine thunderstorm:

The sky is changed!—and such a change! O Night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,

Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night:-Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be