Their glory fills the mind with rapture but for
a while, and it learns that they are, like carven idols, wholly careless
and indifferent to our fate.
Then is the valley incomplete, and the void
sad! Its hills speak of death as well as of life, and we know that for
man there is nothing on earth really but man; the human species owns and
possesses nothing but its species. When I saw this I turned with
threefold concentration of desire and love towards that expression of
hope which is called beauty, such as is worked in marble here. For I
think beauty is truthfully an expression of hope, and that is why it is
so enthralling - because while the heart is absorbed in its contemplation,
unconscious but powerful hope is filling the breast. So powerful is it as
to banish for the time all care, and to make this life seem the life of
the immortals.
Returning the next morning, my thoughts went on, and found that this
ideal of nature required of us something beyond good. The conception of
moral good did not satisfy one while contemplating it. The highest form
known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing of good, not for
any reward, now or hereafter, nor for the completion of an imaginary
scheme. This is the best we know. But how unsatisfactory! Filled with the
aspirations called forth by the ideal before me, it appeared as if even
the saving of life is a little work compared to what the heart would like
to do. An outlet is needed more fully satisfying to its inmost desires
than is afforded by any labour of self-abnegation. It must be something
in accord with the perception of beauty and of an ideal. Personal virtue
is not enough. The works called good are dry and jejune, soon
consummated, often of questionable value, and leaving behind them when
finished a sense of vacuity. You give a sum of money to a good object and
walk away, but it does not satisfy the craving of the heart. You deny
yourself pleasure to sit by the bedside of an invalid - a good deed; but
when it is done there remains an emptiness of the soul. It is not
enough - it is casuistry to say that it is. I often think the reason the
world is so cold and selfish, so stolid and indifferent, is because it
has never yet been shown how to be anything else. Listening to the
prophets of all times and climes, it has heard them proclaim their
ordinances, and has seen these observances punctually obeyed for hundreds
of years, and nothing has come of it all. To-day it listens to the
prophets of humanity, and it sees much real benevolence actually carried
out. But the result is infinitesimal. Nothing comes of it; it does not
satisfy the individual heart. The world at large continues untouched and
indifferent - first because its common sense is not convinced, and
secondly because its secret aspirations are in no degree satisfied. So
that it is not altogether the world's fault if it is stolid. Everything
has been tried and found wanting, Men rushed in crowds to the
gold-diggings of California, to the Australian 'finds;' and in like
manner, if any real spiritual or ideal good were proffered, crowds would
rush to participate in it. Nothing yet has been given but empty words,
and these so-called 'goods' have proved as tasteless, and as much Dead
Sea apples, as the apples of vice; perhaps even more bitter than the
regrets of vice. Though I cannot name the ideal good, it seems to me that
it will be in some way closely associated with the ideal beauty of
nature.
SUMMER IN SOMERSET.
The brown Barle River running over red rocks aslant its course is pushed
aside, and races round curving slopes. The first shoot of the rapid is
smooth and polished like a gem by the lapidary's art, rounded and smooth
as a fragment of torso, and this convex undulation maintains a solid
outline. Then the following scoop under is furrowed as if ploughed
across, and the ridge of each furrow, where the particles move a little
less swiftly than in the hollow of the groove, falls backwards as foam
blown from a wave. At the foot of the furrowed decline the current rises
over a rock in a broad white sheet - white because as it is dashed to
pieces the air mingles with it. After this furious haste the stream does
but just overtake those bubbles which have been carried along on another
division of the water flowing steadily but straight. Sometimes there are
two streams like this between the same banks, sometimes three or even
more, each running at a different rate, and each gliding above a floor
differently inclined. The surface of each of these streams slopes in a
separate direction, and though under the same light they reflect it at
varying angles. The river is animated and alive, rushing here, gliding
there, foaming yonder; its separate and yet component parallels striving
together, and talking loudly in incomplete sentences. Those rivers that
move through midland meads present a broad, calm surface, at the same
level from side to side; they flow without sound, and if you stood behind
a thick hedge you would not know that a river was near. They dream along
the meads, toying with their forget-me-nots, too idle even to make love
to their flowers vigorously. The brown Barle enjoys his life, and
splashes in the sunshine like boys bathing - like them he is sunburnt and
brown. He throws the wanton spray over the ferns that bow and bend as the
cool breeze his current brings sways them in the shade. He laughs and
talks, and sings louder than the wind in his woods.
Here is a pool by the bank under an ash - a deep green pool inclosed by
massive rocks, which the stream has to brim over.
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