The Clifton clarion., 1886-06-09
Beauty Blindness.

AS some men are DOTH cOtOI- blind, so there are others who have
 somehow failed to be endowed
 with any sense by which they may
 discern beauty. From among
 these men starts up, every now
 and again, some reformer with
 more zeal for morality than dis
 crimlnation of it's real essence, and
 begins crusade against the nude
 in art. \ few years ago t was &
 company of New York clergymen;
 just now it is the City Fathers of
 Montreal, who have advised them
 selves to take action against a
 wealthy citizen because he has in
 his house copies of such master
 pieces of art as the "Venus" of
 Milo. the "Laocoon," and the
 "Greek Slave;" and they further
 propose to close the shop of
 prominent dealer because he ex-
 poses similar works in his window.
 Doubtless this blindness to
 beauty is not confined to any par
 ticular rank in life, and there are,
 in every condition, people upon
 whom the effect even of such glo-
 rious master-works is damaging.
 Men and boys, and alas! women
 and girls, do live and walk among
 us who, to paraphrase the words
 of noble thinker, know nothing
 as beautiful, but know only the
 unholy. And they are not the on
 ly ones. There are men and wo-
 men of unprecedented goodness and
 purity of heart, who blush perforce
 at the sight of unclotled flesh and
 naked limbs on canvas or in mar
 ble, because they have no eyes for
 the beauty which clothes true art
 as with garment. But because
 such souls exist, and can find only
 poison in the food by which finer
 natures grow constantly into 8 more vigorous purity, shall the world be denied its divine inherit ance, and lose that calm elevation of soul which is the gift of beauty to every one who gazes upon il with single and fearless eye?
 Next to the view of snow-clat mountains, there is nothing whict : so powerfully ministers to that elevation of soul as antique statu ary, or of modern in which the an
 tiqne spirit dwells. The white grandeur, the pure outline, the profound and passionless repos( which we find in both, we find no where else in nature or in art. Il is even true that to the untutoreC soul the appeal from art IS more
 direct and unerriDg than the ap peal from nature. Catch a wilc street Arab, and lure him into the halls of the Vatican or the long gallery of the Ufizi, and he vii
 be impressed, awed, subdued, as ht would not have been by the sub finest scenery, for the function O art is to put into concrete ant
 clearly defined form the larger teachings of nature.
 There is such an educating, sucf Q humanizing influence in pure beauty-beauty which owes noth ing to color or contrast, to custom or fashion, but which owes all tt truth-whIch is, indeed, the trutl :. itself embodied-as only they whose eyes are opened can per ceive. It as far outweighs an! possible harm which it may bring to more poorly endowed natures : as the number of the opened-eyed exceeds the number of the blind. There is an inconsistency which would be ludicrous if it were moi so hideous, in the sense of proprie ! ty winch condems the AIedici We nus" and approves the public sea bathing of our watering places with its accessories of gaping } crowds and more than half-nudt loungers of both sexes. While oul boys and girls are permitted to lol about the beach under umbrellas in dank garments and dripping hail with all the suggestiveness of nu dity and mono of the beauty whicL should clothe 1t, it will be vain in ) deed to surround them with thinge of beauty in their homes. They might spend their lives amid beau ] ty ineffable, and find it only na ; kedness, as the Montreal authori : ties do.
 Slow Power and Friction.
 It has been shown that by ap
 ,o1-;ro- ,,,,o,,o,I1- f, e{rCDcr .,l,>u