Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1864-05-18
RaiIg aatEIItake
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
seta ssaELn. fos June:
I7F0a 20 e learn how great a gr

on5 I'D virtue is geniality, or
on,ssress to all good influences and true
fellowship, and that life would not be
nearly as poor and hard as it is if we
would only take the gifts that God and
Nature are so ready to give us. If we
were more genial we must be not only
more cheerful and calm, but also more
earnest and original; aud nothing more
saddens and impoVerishes us than the
idea that we must be always exhaustlng
ourselves, and never filling up-always
on the 90, and never in pefect rest. We
are neary all over worked and what we
call our pleasure is often our hardest
work, and keeps us forever on the drive.
Society goes with a rush, and tongues
and plates clatter at night after the cliDk
of dollars aud the din of hammers cease
with the going down of the sun. AS soon
as day ends we try to quarrel with Gods
law, and force night into an unnatural
day at our presumptuous bidding, re-
Yersing instead OF perfecting the true
economy of the hour. We will not
quarrel with art for trying to seize and
continue the spell of nature, and pFolong
the Witchery of twilight by music and
conversation, paintings and the drama,
and the other devices that refresh the
genial soul, and entertain without ex-
hausting the waiting intellect, sensiblity,
and fancy. The longer we live in the
great city the more we are convinced
that art is onG of the most rational and
healtbiul Of Influences among US, and is
doing much to carry out the work of
nature, and save US from thefOllies of
artificial society.
A
gallery or ut the opera prOlongs the
charm of sunset, and deepensit delight
without of necessity destroying its tran
guilty. There is something in all true
art that is in the evening tone, and sug-
gests the finished day, and knocks at the
door of tue genial soul. Each picture or
song is in its waya roHnded whole. and
asks to be taken into our hospitality as q
ready guest TO sooths and cheer, and not
to fret and fever us. Tho work of art is
of itself something done already, and
even a picture of sunrise or the morning
chorus of the hunters is finished com.
position, and thus bears with it some
thing of the expression of the parting
day. But society, as it generally pre-
walls, is unfinished, restless, striving, un-
comfortable, and adds the glare and hur-
ry of the morning to the borrowed vexa-
lions, the chills aud heats, the crowds and
blaze of the artificial evening.
We would give more for an hour at
sunset, with friend or two under genial
sky, than for all the midnight magniti-
cence of our crowded and heated draw
ing-rooms. 1t is one of the growing |
charms of our city life that we are not
forced to go far from home to enjoy this
solace, and nature is now opening her
Eden in the midst of our rising homes
Our great Park is retaining the very
hour by many most of all neglected; and
the bosom of day, that sunset hour which
is so often lost at the dinner. table, or in
the after.dinner nap, is becoming IA
VOrite hour with multitudes to reVel in
the charms of our public gardens, groves
and waters.
Art, too, is helping out the spell, and
combining her voices and visions with the
concerts and galleries of nature. God
crown the union until the whole city,
enjoys the delight, and pleasure rises in
to refinement, and society becomes a |
school Of education
We remarked lately, in an essay in |
these pages, that the Christian Church
has reversed the order of the ma
turnl year, and made the Autumn and |
Winter ofnature the Spring and Sum
mer of the soul, beginning her Spring |
time ut Advent, which generally opens
with December, aud fixing the two great
festivals of Christmas aud Easter ut sea-
sons when among US earth withholls her
bloom. We do not quarrel ut this ar
rangement, aud are glad to have the in
ward life genial as the outward world is
cold and dreary.
A.
the Christmas carol and Yule.tid log meet
the craving for social joy and cody mirth
when SNOW and ices bud the landscape
IE Is wise to follow the same principle in
the order of the day, and not reverse, but
rather interpret and complete the mean
ings of the hour by just method. Night
is the winter Of the day in its darkness
aud GOODNESS, and we need, therefore, to
do what we can to cheer it into a summer
of the soul, instead of yielding passively to
its humors, Probably, If leftto ourselves,
We would go to sleep soon after suudOWn,
with the beasts aud birds and not 80
much our individual inclinatious as the
habits OF society keep us awake, aud secure
TO as our round of pleasures aud ocCupa.
tiOus
What We ought to seek 10 the round of
the day, as of the year, is such adaptations
as carry out instead OF annuliiug the laws
of God and nature. In Winter We wisely,
follow the reaction of the heart from the
chill of nature, aud try TO make life genial
and spiritual without Vainly forcing the
season into an unnatural Summer; so we
should make the evening social aud
thoughtful without trying TO bring back
the cares aud worry and glare of the day.
The true evening tone of life is matter
that We are to study as ever betore-to
make il genial without dissipation, INTEL
lectual without stEaiuiug, refining without
affsctation, aud devOnt without pFetensiun.