Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-07-05

seeing 1t i'll print. For their graf
fication and our own we have pre-
vailed upon the gifted orator I
perrhit its publication in our co
umns.
1t was with much hesitancy W
accepted the invitation to be wit
you to-day. We were mindful tha
our audience would be composed {
men and women of learning an
culture, scholars rich and ripe,
and, above all, "sWeet girl gradu
ates,n as Tennyson calls them-th
most critical and merciless of hear
ers, fresh from those classic shade
from which the most arduous 0
professions has for years exiled US
enough to make us pause.
But then we wanted to come tt
Clarksyille; we wished to renew
associations of camp and colleg,
that were pleasantly remembered
The same promptings that brought
so many of the AlunnW of this in
stitute to this reunion brought us
and our incIinations triumphed
over our judgment and prudence.
We are here, like Labienus,
Hopeless of pleasing, yet inclined to please
Having determined to come, the
next step was to determine what
subject would be appropriate to the
time, the place and the occasion.
In this connection we remembered
that Clarksville was the loveliest of
places that its hills and its valleys,
with their adornments of art and
evidences of taste, with the grand
sweep of its majestic river, made it
the home of the beautiful /; that we
were to be surrounded by beautiful
women, and at a season of the year
when the sunshine is sweetest and
the flowers most lovely, and it oc-
Cured to us that to talk of fThe
Beautiful itself would not be inap-
propriate.
We will not undertake to define
in what the beautiful consists, for
its best exponent, Ruskin, has said
that sit does not know that it is, or
what it is" and Cousin has said
that "the domain of beauty is more
extensive than the physical world
exposed 10 our view; it has no
bounds but those of entire nature
and of the soul and genius of man."
We can only select some of the most
reasonable, and, to US, plausible
theories Of its exponents, and pass
ing with hasty review from these,
proceed to their practical applica-
ton to the higher purposes of this
address.
The beautiful-tO kQEon-was a
favorite subject among the ancients,
Plato and Aristotle being among
the earliest writers, and it was not
until the eighteenth century that
Investigation into the nature of the
beautiful was brought again into the
study of philosophy. Baumgarten
made it a science, and that science
he expressed by the word "asthet-
ics," from the Greek "aeStI03lOn1di," /"
feel, conveying the double idea of
the effect of something without up
on the something within.
Kant and Schelling and Schiller
among the Germans, with Hutchin-
son and Jeffrey, Burke, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Allison, and lastly,
Ruskin among the British, with
Cousin, of the French, have all
written more or less upon the sci
ance. 1t is useless, however, to
attempt an analysis or comparison
of the various theories of these, of
which we might say almost gen.
orally, as was said of one, tina" "this
was rapturous Platonic doctrine,
impossible to criticise because unin-
telligihle." No definition has been
able to express its effect. That GER
tain physical objects are beautiful is
admitted by all, and certain rules
are established determining whether
they are beautiful or not; but how
these forms and binations and
colors impress man and give him
the pleasurable sensihility of the
beautiful is the YeAed question. The
aesthetic sense is the most difficult
of Interpretation in psychology.
The child hovering above the flower
in which trembles the deW-dTop-
itself a human flower with its soul
for dew-drop; the lover, looking
from the stars into the deeper heaV=
en- of his loved ones eyes the ar
tist who, like Vernet, lashed to the
mast that he might view the storm,
beholds its IOveliness and sublimity;
the virgin votary who bows before
the altar while wealth of har-
mony sweeps over her soul-each
and ali of these murmurs beautiful,
beautiful, and yet they know not
whence nor how comes this melody
to their soul,
The simplest treatment OF thesub-
ject divides it into physical, intel
IectuGi and moral beauty. This is
Cousin, while Ruskin divides it into
typical and vital beauty. We adopt
the first, but both are but different
forms Of Sehlegel, who analyses the
being of art and nature from the
idea of beauty. The sound or sight,
that is the object or being of beauty,
and the sense or idea Of beauty
within ourselves.
Physical beauty is dependent upon
order, harmony, proportion, sound
cOlorS and movements. All the
beauties of nature, whether the
"wee crimson-tipped flower" or the
majestic mountain, owe their effect
to these, You examine the simplest
object Of art-a vase or painting-it
has one kind Of beauty. You turn
from this and stand upon the noun
taip,top and gaze into the far dis
tance, oyer hill and valley, over
stream and wood, and beyond still
to the evening clouds which rest
upon the far confines Of the world
you see the sun sinking to rest, and
"feel your heart float softly with
him behind yon western paradise of
clouds, until your soul expands and
you drink in the magic beauty of
the scene. This is another and diff
ferentexprassiQn of beauty, differing
in form, alike in result, but each
springing from some combination
of these elements-form, proportion,
color hanmnnN