Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1858-09-01
NATURE AND USE OF BEAUTY.

himself devoted TO beauty as the end OF
Art, while of the absolutely beautiful, as
distinguished by our therry, he seems to
have had scarcely a perception. Cousin
speaks distinctly Of ''two forms OF beauty,
the beautiful and the sublime" Ruskin,
and most others, ignore the sublime as
essentially distinguished from the beauii
full. Burke alone makes the distinction
clearly. In our analysis we believe that
we have indicated the cause Of this; for,
of the two elements ofthe Divine nature,
Love and Wisdom, it is the Love which
especially and necessarily claims our
thought and feeling, which is the life of
all things that exist, the motive creation,
of preservation, and redemption; the sum
of the articles Of faith of all religious be-
ing. indeed, "God is Love-" And so
amongst ourselves, as the children of
Him, we find that love is the secret spring
of all worthy acts or works, the life of all
true and lofty lives, while power, which
comes of wisdom, and even wisdom itself,
are useless, except as the instruments of
accomplishing the ends which love has
in view. Love is the end; Wisdom the
means; and herein lies the secret of this
obscuring OF the sublime to our spiritual
vision, Of lis being always overshadowed
by the beautiful. We shall accept this
indication so far as to simplify our dis
cusSion of the practical part of the sub
ject, by leaving out the sublime from it,
since in everything that pertains 10 the re-
ception andeffect on the soul ofimpression
of Sublimiiy and Beauty, the laws and
the analogies are the same. They are
alike involuntary and independent of
pure, intellectual condition or examination,
alike instantaneous and instructive in their
awakening, one being, if our theory holds,
the intuiiive understanding of the signs
of the Divine Wisdom in Creation; the
other of the Divine Love: remember, not
the rational conviction that they are such
and such signs and simbols-a conviction
which can only come by intellectual in
vestigations and logical deductions, but
just such an understanding as a child has
of good soul when ii sees kindly and
gentle face-perfectlY realized, though
no, one line could be explained. And
as therefore, whatever is true in princi-
pie, is true of the other, capable of indif-
ferent application, we shall omit any
further consideration of the Sublime; re-
turning 10 Beauty, and leaving the appli-
cation of our conclusion 10 Sublimiiy, TO
the reader.
In characterizing impressions of beauty
as intuitive, as not dependent on Intellect
ual action; we leave no other position
possible than that they should be, in some
wise, sensations But they do not exist
in the bodily sense; for the eye may see
a beautiful object, and yet not convey an
impression of its beauty to the mind
For example, if number of persons see
a face distinguished for spiritual beauty
Tor real beauty some vii! find that
beauty and some will not, though all see
the some lines and forms; 10 some they
are genuine revelations, TO others nothing.
The reason is simple-the signs of good
ness, or of virtue, are only Ineligible to
those who know what their goodness or
virtue is, which they only can do who
possess it in themselves; as Ruskin ex-
presses it. 'by The seeing and reaching
forth of the better part of the soul TO that
of which it must first know the sweetness
and goodness in itself; before it can
much desire, or rightly find, the signs of
it in Others" 1t is, then, the moral
nature itself, whithsis the censorium of
beauty, each attribute of that nature
wakening to life activity at the call of
its sister faculty in another mind, as ut
tered through the phrase of Beauty;
which is its proper expression-deeP
calling unto deep. And so we only be-
come readers of Beauty as we possess
and foster those qualities which are the
causes of the beauty; and just so surely |
as virtue and goodness in all its forms,
are beautiful when made visible in the
face or form of humanity, so surely we
only become seers of Beauty by deep and
earnest acquaintance with those qualities
in our own souls. Thus, again says !
Ruskin, "No Intellectual operation is
here OF any avail. There is not any
reasoning by which the evidences of de-
pravity are 10 be traced in the movements
of muscle or form Of feature; there is not |
any knowledge, for experience, nor dill
gence of comparison that can be Of any
avail. Here, as throughout the opera
ticn of the theoreiic faculty, the percep-
iion is altogether moral, and instructive
love, and clinging to the lines of Light
Nothing but love can read the letters,
nothing but sympathy catch the sound;
there is no pure passion that can be
understood or painted, except by pure
ness of heart" From this conclusion
there is no escaping; all past art, all
philosophy, and all instinc, of pure and
noble minds 90 to confirm it: and to
sum up the whole matter in few words,
we may use those of Christ, "Blessed are