Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-10-22


All lovers of Irish comedy should attend.
------sse--
The Ideal.
The Ideal is the Heaven of the soul. De-
sire would end with its obtainment, and
every longing would be satisfied.
The Ideal alone is beautiful; for with all
else there is the stain of Earth, the dross of
mixed mortality.
If there be reason for belief in our own
deathlessness, it lies within the constant con-
sciousness of the Ideal, which glimmers star
like, from above, through all the night of
circumstance and time.
The spirit sees in the Ideal all its posi-
bility, perchance-and SO we fondly hope
its final destiny. May it not be the reflection
of the soul, whose light anticipates the COM
ing creature, and illumes the yet-untraveled
way?
Philosophy has taught that all desire fore
shadows only pleasure still to come. If so,
then must the Ideal be a prophet of the
future, the secret soothsayer of our inexperi-
enced lot
But be it what it may, it iS not the less
beautiful less grand and high and true.
The Will Eternal of Malignity may have Or
dained that the Ideal be cheat; but to each
| mind with faculty to think, to every heart
with power to feel, the Ideal must in some
shape be the real since only unto it the
| spirit moves in harmony.
| DuI IOT IH6 uedT luedl WudJ were we
What difference, else, were there between
the lofty intellect and the sluggish instinct
| that ignorance and custom have enslaved?
| By the rays of the Ideal, we see the un-
| trodden path that leads to sky-girt submits
| and to sacred seats. When will they be
| reached? No voice can answer; and if we
ask it with most anxiety, silence alone re-
plies. -....
Severe the toll and heavy the burden of
disappointment to him who journeys up the
| steep toward the Ideal.
| AS he mounts, the Ideal RISES and the
things about him pail upon his sense. The
relish of the objects he may reach is lost;
his eye is fixed upon the cynosure still BEAM
ing DER his life.
Yet is there consolation for with each
waning moon he breathes a purer air, and
sees new purple blooms that seem to say for
the Ideal unobtained, "forget-me-not;" as If
Nature had made them remembrancers of
duty unto man.
Mortality is ever miserable, but better to
be endured when we ascend to higher planes
than if we walk in shadowed valleys. Effort
for purpose, though fruitless, is its own re-
ward: the reeompense of doing is to have
done.
The Ideal frees us from many fetters; for
the chains of self and prejudice can not hold
US when we quit the surface of the sphere.
Thereafter, we are lvers from within, and
| 4
suffer proudly, as heroes in holy cause we
do not fret because the pigmies are at play.
The Ideal yields each just conception of
what we honor and revere, of what we long
for and we love. How should we, else, know
goodness, beauty truth? From observation
drawn, our estimate of these would be a
satire on intelligence.
Looking outward upon the world, deceit,
deformity, decay meets us at every step; and
yet their opposites are in our mind through
cherishing of the Ideal.
We have faith in the Ideal, in that ii shows
us higher truths; still we shall perish q
thousand times ere we reach within the dis
tance of an angels voice.
The genuine Ideal is not for man in this
curde form: the palingenesis must be before
the atmosphere that clearly reveals the nu-
cleus of its beams.
Alas all the heart worships, all the spirit
longs for, and the soul adores, is the Ideal
the emerald caskStof the Eastern tale, which
once to open, is to sink in slumber, and
| awake, encircled in the Hours arms.
, We see the sage's vision and the poets
. dream, and think, chow beautiful! how
, much the picture of the Idealp We catcl
: the rising landscape in our eye, and at tn,
, | mellowing distance breathe in its charmful
ness. No sight before was e'er so lovely
, and because we gaze through the atmos
! phere Ideal.
Even the git OF glftS, tne DlesSlng OF al
blessings, Love, is an Ideal, and only last
while such 1t seems.
: Remove the crimson mists, the colder
clouds the purple distances, the delightful
phantasies that ever group themselves witt
5 the Ideal, and Love passes like the aroma of
I flower.
The mistress of thy soul owes her frs
beauty and the last to the Ideal radiance il
: which she stands. The Ideal is her ayatar
! and thy worship is at borrowed shrine.
Brief must be the angels reign the Idea
will not long befriend her. Reason ono
begun, the arabesque of fancy fades. Tho,
may'st hang upon her lip as if all blissfulnes
were centered there, until by Love thou ar
apotheossed.
Lift up thine eyes again to hers, and thougl
! still there, she seems to have vanished il
the moment. The woman still smiles, still
loves; but the angel is no more, and tn,
: thoughts are with the departed form alone
Thy mistress is dead on the Earth: tn
mistress was the Ideal. She has fed I
! Heaven, and so once more we say the Idea
is the Heaven of the soul. JUNIUS.