The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-04 00:00:00

PRACTICAL WISDOM.

Is it carelessness or frivolity to live in the present, as we
all did, in those days? Is it not, in truth, the highest and
best philosophy to enjoy the passing light of each blue day,
as if it never should return—to revel in the bright mornings,
which spring from Eternity, and return to Eternity at
night? Why should we scorn the little days, passing on
angel wings, and fix our thoughts on the regrets of the past,
or the perils of the Future ? Strange it should be so, but
so it is ; to most men there is no present—there is yesterday
and to-morrow, but seldom to-day. We are ever like the
passengers on the vessel's deck, bound to the far distant
land ; some cluster in the bow, and strive with anxious vision
to pierce the purple clouds resting on the horizon; others
gather near the stern, and gaze with fond lingering regrets
on the loved shore, sinking lower and lower as the ship
speeds on her trackless way; but rarely is the wanderer
found whose sense of enjoyment is satisfied with the fresh
breeze, the bright sea-foam, the greatness and wildness of
the waters he is traversing. Happy, inleed, are they who
allow each day to suffice for itself, and only anticipate the
future, when the anticipation relieves a present suffering.
Such, and such only, will bear with them into maturer
years the freshness and buoyancy of youth.
_ _

In the history of an artist of course the subject of
art is fittingly commemorated, ex gr. :

ART AND ARTISTS.

For an artist the sky has a deeper blue, the trees a richer
foliage, the tints are softer, the green more varied, the
shadows and contrasts of scenery more intense than to the
general observer. So it is—as a man grows in art, he
will grow in thought and poetry ; and then to think how
much happiness art has conferred on the family which
possesses the vivid resemblance of the lost—how much art
has done for history. What does not Spain owe to the pencil
of Velasquez P—and, indeed, what has art not done for the
faith ? A Murillo and Raphael, as Christian teachers,
stand near a Bossuet or Fenelon.

" Very true," said Markham ; " and for this cause art
fell off when a great faith ceased to become a moving
of principle of life and action. In his work on Spanish
painters, Stirling, whose pen conveys impressions not less
vivid than the works he so eloquently describes, tells us,
repeatedly, that these great masters strove to call forth the
virtues and charities they had represented on their canvas
that they had toiled not merely for fame but for the glory
of religion, and the instrnetion of men. It has often oc-
curred to me how the Titans who stood in proud array at
the portals of the sixteenth century, must have been in-
spired with a subject before they took pencil in hand. Can
you not picture Lenardo da Vinci, meditating on the heights
of Fiesole, which overlook sweet Florence, ever the beau-
tiful. Thence he could contemplate the city, basking on
the sunny banks of the Arno, the villas scattered in pic-
turesque groups upon the vine-clad hills ; but music of the
city bells from convent and tower being borne towards him
on the soft evening breeze. Depend upon it, it was with a
mind fraught with no common emotion, and in a spirit
of great faith, which the beauty of the scenery, or the silence
of the cloister, may have called forth, that he conceived that
Madonna which, next to his Last Supper, was the greatest,
as it was the first, of his marvellous conceptions. What
must have been the frame of mind of Raffaele when he
imagined his glorious cartoons P—or of Michael Angelo
when he painted his Last Judgment ? It was well remarked,
that religion, poetry, and art are all one—the expression of
the true, and beautiful, and good ; at least,so it was formerly.
Now, I am afraid, much more material objects come into
play, and artists prefer creating fortunes to creating immor-
tal works,

We have not space for all the passages we might
willingly select, and yet mere isolated passages
scarcely do justice to the simple charm
that pervades the book as a whole. It
is filled throughout with suggestive thoughts
and kindly sympathies. As, for example,
when it is asked, almost indignantly, " who shall
judge another man's life, who shall turn the page
down ? For, are there not pages turned down in
ail lives ? Is there not a chamber in every heart
where men desire that no one should enter ?" In
another passage, speaking of trifling acts of kind-
ness, it is truly observed—" Is anything in life really
trifling ? There is much Christianity in closing
doors gently —there is great charity in the
small obligations of life, if we would but
remember it." " Life," it is said in another place,
" is a tragedy for men who possess sympathies; a
comedy to men of hard hearts andgood digestions."
Yet, is this remark less truthful than the kindred
opinion of Gray, where he tells us that all men
are

" Condemned alike to groan,
The tender for another's pain, the unfeeling for hie own."
From what we have said, it will readily be inferred
that we have been more fascinated by the manner
of this story, and the thoughts and sentiments that
it records, than with the story itself. We must
confess that our friendly interest is more largely
excited by the biographer than by the hero of the
tale. The love episode of Leonard's history is an
unfortunate one, and is to be regretted. It almost
reconciles us to his early death. His name will,
however, linger as a pleasant memory with all who
may peruse this charming record of his career.

Savage Africa. By W. Winwood Reade. One
Vol., pp. 687, illustrate& Smith and Elder.

Mr. Winwood Reads tells us in his preface that
he makes no pretensions to the title of explorer.
"If I have any merit," he says, "it is that of
having been the first young man about town to
make a bona fide tour in Western Africa ; to travel
in that agreeable and salubrious country, with no
special object, and at his own expense ; to
,caner
in the virgin forest, to flirt with pretty savages ;
and to smoke his cigar among cannibals !" An
attractive picture assuredly, and a companionship
that few " men about town" will envy Mr. Win-
wood Reads, although certainly possessing all the
charms of novelty, a novelty refreshing, one might
imagine, even to a Sir Charles Coldstream. If we
remember aright Mr. Curzon, in his very remark-
able work on the monasteries of the Levant, met
with a monk who had never seen a woman. Equally
surprising is a discovery made by this African
explorer when, following out that part of his pro-
gramme which suggests " a flirtation with pretty
savages," he ventures on one occasion to kiss
Anauga, the daughter of the King. The damsel is
terrified, she thinks he is going to devour her !
" This mode of salutation is utterly unknown in
Western Africa; the poor child had thought I was
going to dine off her, and had run for her life !" It
may be objected perhaps that Mr. Reade's style of
relation is too light and flippant for the serious
work he has undertaken. Conscious of this him-
self, he tells us in extenuation that the greater
part of the work was written at first in letters to a
friend. Occasionally a more serious spirit comes
over the gossiping traveller, as when sitting by
the grave of a fellow.countryman, he tells us
"No one but those who have travelled in a wild and
desert and sickly land can understand the emotions
with which one contemplates the grave of a white
man in the wilderness. It diverts one from the
ignoble realities of savage life, and fills one's eyes
with those tears which the proudest man is
not ashamed to shed." S me very spirited illus-
trations of " the Queen of the Cannibals," of " the
Gorilla," about whom (or which) Mr. Reads has col-
lected many interesting particulars, of the terrors
of an African Tornado, which, we are informed, are
like a woman's wrath, furious but brief," of " an
inundation in Senegambia," in which all the rival
animals of the forest moved by the fear of a com-
mon danger are crowded together on a projecting
elevation ; these and some other similar scenes de-
picted by a happy pencil,
increase the attractions
of this very interesting volume. Before taking
leave of Mr, Reade, however, we must express our
total dissent to the moral and educational conclu-
sions which he draws from his wanderings. By
his account Africa is to be civilised and enlightened
not by Christianity, but by the teachings of
Mahornmed ! It is undoubtedly true that the
Mussulman is less barbarous than the savage, but
to extirpate heathenism by error is, to say the least
of it, an extraordinary way of propagating truth—