Page images
PDF
EPUB

Infinite as is her variety, nature is delicately sparing of discordant sounds. Walk out into the fields in a summer evening, and listen to the thousand voices raised in the happiness of animated nature: you will find them blended together in perfect harmony. Accidents, the sounds of human labor, may introduce a discord, but the native voices, though infinitely numerous, flow altogether in a clear rippling ocean of music. Even inanimate sounds are harmonized by the same law of a benevolent Creator; and the little stream that murmurs by, or the hoarser waterfall, chime sweetly in tune with the living sounds. Those which are originally harsher, are often softened by the distance they have come, the intervening space purifying them from their discordant ingredients, as if the atmosphere itself were constructed with a view to musical effect. So of the choir which fills the woods with the more varied notes of a morning in spring; all are found to be most truly in accordance with the principles of music. And so also of every other sound in nature which we call beautiful. The beautiful in sounds can be produced only by obedience to these laws, which cannot be said to depend in any degree upon association, because they are absolute and invariable, can be calculated in figures, and measured by the length and tension of a cord. The associations of men are infinitely varied, yet all who enjoy music, enjoy it on the same principle. Some may have less quickness to perceive sounds than others, but what they do perceive of melody pleases them, and what they

distinctly perceive of discord, displeases, and often in defiance of association.

Many songs, wedded in memory with the days of our childhood and youth, when we heard them sung by plain, rough voices, still move our affections when sung by the same voices, for the associations atone, to some extent, for the defects of the singing. But let a more skillful musician, of sweet and flexible voice, take up the air and develop its pure music, and at once we recognise superior beauty, though the plain voice has all the advantages of association, and the fine one relies solely upon the truth of musical science.

Nor is the musical faculty anything unique in human nature. It is perfectly in accordance with the whole tendency of the mind, which seeks and seizes upon the system of nature, finding its affinity therewith, and never can be satisfied in combining what it perceives to be heterogeneous elements. It is only the expression by the ear of that which is more variously expressed by the eye, uttered in their own feebler voices by the other senses, and embodied in the harmony of all the powers of the thinking being.

The pleasures of the other senses are not so directly and extensively the ministers of beauty, because they are more concerned in affairs of the body than of the spirit; but when we remember that they must pass through the alembic of the mind before they come to us in art, we shall find no reason for excluding their contributions from the treasury of delight. Although

we do not apply the term beautiful to the immediate objects of physical taste, we may have the conception of a pleasant taste brought in such a connection as to contribute to beauty, and speak as properly of the beauty of Lamb's "Dissertation on roast pig," as of Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality." In the case of touch, taste, and smelling, it cannot be necessary to prove that the pleasure they communicate originates in the real gratification of the organs. For I suppose that none will deny it. And, as a general rule, the better the article is calculated to effect its primary purpose of sustaining the healthy development of the sentient being, the greater is the gratification of the senses by which it is received.

Thus, all these primary pleasures and pains are set by the Creator at the various gates by which the nourishment for mind and body is received, that they may judge of what is conducive to the well being of both, may reject the evil, and choose the good; while beauty is an emotion subsequent to a perception of the latter, and a higher reward of its attainment.

CHAPTER VI.

INTELLECTIONS MINISTERING TO BEAUTY-TRUTH.

BUT the mind is not only capable of receiving impressions from the external world, it is the owner of stores within itself, which, if not more numerous, are of a higher and more enduring kind. From its own nature spring its highest enjoyments and most humbling afflictions; all the delights of sense are but childish toys, till taken up by the mind, and woven into the web of its own creation.

By combination with its hopes and fears, its warm emotions and clear conceptions of power, of relations, and of truth, the humbler pleasures of the bodily sense acquire a dignity which can never be their own. To this nobler part of consciousness, the art of literature addresses itself most immediately, employing the former as but the channels and signs, whereby impressions of the external world are to be communicated; but even those arts which must submit to the external senses, aim to reach beyond them, and to take hold upon a nobler approbation, accounting it their proudest achievement to have passed the gates of sensation, and

to have their merits acknowledged in the presence of the pure intellect. While they, however, have to struggle toward this coveted distinction by indirect and dubious means, literature claims the right of immediate presentation and hearing, both in her own name, and as the interpreter of the whole, employing a system of signs, which to the senses are as idle air, and are really meaningless, except as symbols to address the understanding. To literature, the materials of sensation are valuable as stone and mortar to the architect; but that which animates a whole production with beauty, must be drawn from the same spiritual source to which it aspires.

Truth, in every form, when clearly seen, is attended with delight. Why, it would be vain to enquire. The process, from beginning to end, is within the train of the mind's own condition, and in obedience to the laws of its organization, for which the only cause that can be assigned, is the voice of Him who called it into being.

There are no degrees of truth; but many in the approach to it. The mind may fail to descry it, and rest instead upon the cloudy form of error; or, it may be dimly perceived through an obscuring and deceitful medium, or portions may appear, gleams bright but partial may break forth, tending only to gild the clouds through which they pass, and give a plausibility and bolder direction to falsehood. Such conditions give occasion to various kinds and degrees of emotion in the

« PreviousContinue »