The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1889-01-09

traits are absent? Many college grad
yates with minds enriched with classic
and historic lore have lacked intellect
ual and moral sggressiveness and spent
their lives in limited spheres How
many young ladies have left college
laureled with honors, eminently gifted
in mind, capable of ornamenting a
large sphere and Of swinging in an obit
ever simplifying, have settled down in
inglorious contentment TO toll for a
paltry sum when inviting fields have
urged them to rise to the height Of their
grand possibilities, and great would be
their reward.
The defect of Irma's life was not in
her weaving tapestries, painting pictures
and carving diversified creations, for
unrealized ideals help to exalt and en-
noble life. Ideals az are numerous as
human faces, and express all the tastes
of the human family from the midnight
OF barbarism to the noon Of civilization.
The writer knows of place where q
man lives up stairs and hogs down
stairs. SO loose and rickety is the floor,
that when the hogs are squesling and
the horses kicking, he can push board
aside and make them stop. This man
has an ideal, and he imagines it is a
lofty one, for he lives in an upper story.
The defect OF Irma's life was her fail
ure project her personality so AS to
overcome unhappy environments, and
to move out into wider fields.
The very nectar Of life is found in ideal
izing. But the higher we climb, the
more expansive our minds, wider will be
the scope Of our ideals. But we should
never reach our ideals. The lambert
flame Of aspiration dies out when we
have done 80. After Fra Angelica in
Florence painted his magnificent angels
transparent as crystal floating in the blue
calm Of heaven; after Angelo executed
his matchless frescoes in the Basilica
Vsticanus, after Raphael painted his
most beautiful Madonnas; they could
but say collectively I'VE have not met
our ideals, We have not reached the I'M
attained" After Milton poured all the
wealth Of the classics, all the learning
OF Pagan and christian lands, all the
grandeur OF nature and glory Of art in
to his great epic poem. it fell far be-
low his ideal. He could say this is but
an atom to the intellectual poem Of the
universe whose dome is the immensely
OF light"
1t was so with Homer and Tasso,
Dsnte and Shakespeare. When Colum-
bus discovered the new hemisphere and
sailed back TO Spain to show the tro-
plies of the new world TO Ferdinand
and Isabella, no could but say, these
are but drops Of the great ocean yet I'M
navigated, and few specimens OF the
continent uneIplored." Ideals grow
and heighten as the mind enlarges, and
there will always be some dream unful-
filled, some vision unrealiEed, some
ideal unattained, and even amid the
MONDAY OF heaven, We shall find joy in
singing I'VE have not reached the IN
attained" Far beyond our sweetest
fancies, our brightest dreams, our lum-
nous imaginings are fields Of infinite
beauty, and gardens OF infinite wealth.
Had the storm and tempest of heroic
thought broke up the stagnant calm of
Irma's life; had she plunged into the
arena with soul tumultuated by the
regal sway OF a mighty passion, had
she associated power with beauty and
activity with gifts, then grand would
have been her triumph and glorious her
victory. Let us idealize and carve ex-
quisite creations to keep up the rosy
flush of romance, but let them not die in
the gallery OF the imagination. Let
them not be castles OF mist and fog or
bodies rs attenuated as the ghost of the
miser portrayed by Dickens, the buttons
on the back OF whose coat were seen by
looking through his stomach. The
world is plentifully spotted with these
ghosts in the forms of soulless men one
of whom,Dr. Chaplin tersely described
as "a whiskered essence and an organ
lied perfume" But let our creations
have muscle and bone and blood. Let
Ouf StiuctufcS pibnucu Wltill tue WOfk-
shop of the mind become realities in the
external world, even as music, painting,
statuary and architecture are worlds
flung out into space by the soul, and add
TO the comforts and refinements of life
and while we drink the honeyed drops
of mount Helicon, gather the rich Flora
Of Parnassus and sit in the laps OF the
muses. as they whisper to us sweeter
far than music in the night, let us not be
allured by these fairy darlings from the
more rugged paths OF duty and activity.
To the negative Wilderness Of the soul,
let us add the golden glow OF positive
service, and thus make life, like the
crescendoin music or the momentum Of
a billowy wave in mid-Atlantic storm.
"Iu the still air tho music lies unheard,
In the rough marble beauty lies unseen,
TO make the music and the beauty, needs
The masters touch, the sculptor's chisei
Keen"
J. b. WHITFoRD.