Southern standard. [volume] (Columbus, Miss.) 1851-1856, 1852-05-01
For tie Southern STANDARD
peaUty.

over utiIhtIu IAItlS anu peasant aIlke own It's
influence of its power poets have sung and even
philosophers dreamed. Caesar Yielded up an En-
pire at its command, and Rome and Troy both
i felt the invaders step through its influence =
Beauty is indefnable; no logical term can bind
/ its definition 1t may be seen by one man when
another might look in vain. Yet though we can
not absolutely define it, we can make statements
concerning it which may tend in slight de-
gree to express our ideas concerning it. And
first | would say that the idea Of Beauty is COM
posed of two things. First Adaptation, fitness,
regularity, or any such terms, in the object And
second: A keen perception of those states or
qualities in the subject. Those qualities may ex-
/ ist and yet the mind of the observer may not per-
ceiye them. For instance, imagine a savage plac-
j ed amid the machinery of magnificent steamer
/ as she lies inactive at the wharf; he sees great
masses of brass and iron moulded, bent and twis-
ted in every conceivable variety of shapes he
sees too, smoke, and grease, and puddes of wa
ter on the floor With what expressive eugA (
/ he turns away from that which his white friend
/ has been SO eager to show him.
/ Now take an engineer who sees for the FIRST me
some improvement in that same machinery; with
what critical look he scans every bar, aud band,
/ and wheel; how intense his admiration as he
/ thinks of that gigantic power which lies sumber
ling there tanned and chained for mans use. And
when at length he breatfs the one word Beautiful
/ we feel that he is in earnest.
/ Let sailor gaze upon ship with her long
keen huliand tapeTing spars, her sails all set and
/ the water boiling around her bow as she dashes
through it seemingly instinct with life. How keen
will he feel the sense of the beautiful. This is
the beauty of adaptation or fitness.
/ But there is another species of beauty which
fmere words cannot describe. l mean the beauty
of Woman. As web might man attempt to paint
the dazzling briiliancyof lightning, orthe midnight
splender of the northern light. We might get
the form and color, but the briiliancy, the mo-
/ ton, the life would still be wanting.
/ In their estimates of female beauty and It's re-
qusites, scarce two men would agree. One of
/ the greatest of modern poets in describing his
/ ideal says:
q She walks in beauty ike the night
OF cloqdless climess and starry skies,
/ And all that's best OF darE or bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
While another in describing his, says
Her sunny locks
Hang on her temples ike
A golden fleece"
Beauty is confined to no particular style, no set
! terms can certainly define it, Thebrunete or the
/ BLONDES, the CircaSsian or the Spanish maid Cleo
tpatra, or Mary Stuart have alike welded an ip-
duence as dangerous as twas irresistible.
! In what consist this strange influence? Man
cannot resist it if he will, and will not if he can
. L
is in the mind of mankind an instructive longing
after perfection retaining an ndistinctive idea OF
a former state, human nature clings nstinctyelY
to this as to that slender thread which is to con
tduct him in his escape from the mazes and laby-
rnhs of error into the sunlight of perfection and
Immortality.
Now beauty, however small, in whatever object
we see it, is approach to perfection in that par
tieular object, True to its instincts, human ma
ture loves that which brings before il the ina &c
/ of its former state. In dreams it sometimes re-
vels amid scenes of fancied perfection where all
is unclouded beauty, thus seeming as if the spirit
having for brief space laid by its corporal COW
ering, acqs%5res the power to revisit that tabled
garden VIII re no pair or sickness ever come
The highest order of beauty suggest the idea OF
virtue and of love- and the ioaeer degrees in pro-
portion. Hence it is that no brilliancy of COM
plexion, no sparkle of the eye, grace of form
can constitute the highest order of beauty if de-
| void Of the moral attributes true they may daz-
/ ze for time, but the love which they excite is
near akin to lust, though it may carry them thro
untold dangers in the pursuit of their object, yet
that love is selfish and will never bear the test of
endurance and self-denial.
! Hence it comes that those females who have
been the most worldwide in celebrity for the love
which they excited, surpassed all others more in
mental than in physical charms. Aspasia drew
around hef Hlato ana socrates more by brIancy
of inauguration than brilliancy of complexion ;
more by the exquisite grace of expression than
the luxurious grace of form.
There is still another kind of beauty more no
bic and refined, which is the perfection of beauty,
whereas we have hitherto described only attempts
at perfection. mean the beauty of ideas, truth,
virtue love, and whatsoever the soul becomes
possessed with the love Of this beauty it finds it
self the subject of reflex influence and becomes
stimulated thereunto. FOREM
A meeting of the Bar of Chickasaw county was
held in Houston, April, 10th, to pass resolutions