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1022 ffifttf VLtbilt t* [Saturday,
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THE BACHELOR'S EVENING. I am, as you are...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Useful And The Beautiful. Part I .' ...
them fit up the fine old mansion , let the heautiful daughters show themselves in the village , the church he repainted , the road he made more picturesque , then the spirit of the meanest changes , the heautiful has got encouragement , and the useful becomes only a necessity . The word heautiful has various meanings ; amongst some it is the highest point to which the soul can attain in any direction : this is a sense which , although far from being the original one is a true and genuine sense , and may be called the intellectual or final sense . In this sense the power
of the beautiful has always been great when not deteriorated , the differences have existed in the change of direction . When we look rapidly over nations and their histories , there is a melancholy pleasure in observing that they have always been ruled by some ideal power to which they have paid obedience more or less blind . A melancholy delight we may truly say , because it is at the same time piteous to see what a poor idea they often set up of their extreme limits of perfection . It is enough for us here to know that when the meaning of the word beauty is the highest thing for which
we look , then it has had power to move mankind when the useful and all other things have failed . The hope of every nation is towards a something beautiful , the wish lying at the foundation of every man ' s wishes is towards something beautiful ; our predecessors sought it with painted bodies , in wisdom and hopes of a Druidical faith , and our more energetic ancestors sought it in action and in fame , and in the hope of a happy heaven , whilst their life seems to have moved on with true and wholesome excitement as far as it went . Age on
age went by , and their hopes did not diminish , although faith upon faith fell before time . There was still the great wish of mankind , fervid within them , taking some shape or other of the beautiful ; but the treasures of the useful under their feet lay like so much earth , merely ground only to prevent them from falling into the abyss which its absence would cause . So that the elements of civilization to-day , the tools wherewith we conquer mankind , and convert savages into men and slaves into freemen , were mere matter to fill up space absolutely unconnected with ideas .
Men seem to have stood on this earth as strangers , and not viewed it as a part of themselves , as the material out of which they and their ideas were to be worked . The mind very easily sees the abstractly and the simply beautiful ; it is a passion of man in fact , and he did not know and does not know how to attain it . He has tried the whole realm of emotion , and is dissatisfied ; he sees great ends before him , and is disappointed that he docs not attain them . The great end was almost as well seen in early times as now with our great learning , and in some nations much more clearly seen ; as our
learning abundantly proves to us . 1 he propagation of religion has been a passion with many nations , and its success has always been great from the intense love which man has of abstract perfection ; but he has determined to hit the end at once , and like the child he seizes at the moon . The road to knowledge is tedious ; to communicate instantaneously with distant persons was an old enough idea , but to do it was the result of a long series of discoveries , which apparently were leading to no such , end . There is a sameness as well as a loftiness in the aims of all men : the end is alike , from the idle
dreamer about paradise on earth , to the active pursuer of pleasure upon it ; and from him who looks only to heaven , to the man who works steadily at what lies before him . If we look at the higher literature of all nations , we see this very clearly ; the poetry of all times and places can be admired even now , and the eloquence of Greece and Koine are eloquence to us , whilst the preacher atill makes but a poor approach to Isaiah , and Watts is but a poor representative of David . When looking at men in this point of view , we are inclined to think men are everywhere the same ; their emotions are
repetitions only ; and when we see them making no advance , we are ready to lose faith in the value of life , in the existence of anything worth living for in man . Hut when we look on him an one to be civilized , we rise at once into another field of thought , and the ' modern man becomes a superior being , having powers that were once superhuman . We still see the goal , but we feel that we must run for it ; wo still see the moon , but we do not expect to catch it by putting out our handH ; we have learnt its distance . The whole realm of the past ban only been a step , unions wo call it a failure : the realm of metaphysics ,
and of poetry , and of war , and of emotion , and aspiration , and despair , and every other feeling oi which man has been capable , has been found unfit to produce all the result of knowledge , satisfaction , and happiness wanted . Every power has become corrupt , and died disgracefully , becoming an evident curse before its fall , in the various countries which have typified each . Greece proved sufficiently that intellect would not make a nation happy , having tortured itself into an
utter weariness of truth and of falsehood , and lost the object of living . Rome and other nations before and after showed that glory could neither make men nor nations happy , got at the expense of more wretchedness than could be removed by benevolence or by power . And Sybaris was not the only place which showed that luxury did not produce happiness , not even the supply of all things most satisfying to the eye and to the senses generally , failing as they do in making up a harmonious whole .
It is a favourite and well known topic of historians , the enervation of society when the love of the beautiful begins ; prosperity is attained by work ; those who care not for the beautiful , who work for the real and the useful , subdue by a wellknown and natural law those who dwell in refined emotions , or in emotions of taste , which may be refined or merely vague . Great nations , like great men , have begun in energy and poverty , and the beautiful has been sought as a relaxation after labour ; it is an end to be looked for , but we must be cautious how we think we are ready for it . When a nation has began to ornament itself and forgotten
the useful , the fall must surely come . Let us not seek , like the children in the Pilgrim ' s Progress , to have all our toys now , and nothing afterwards . If a man thinks he has attained , he has still to think of his neighbours ; and if one class has attained , it must think of the others ; and if one nation has attained , it must think of foreigners . As long as seveneighths of mankind are unprotected in some respect , it is not for any class to be idle and give themselves up to happiness . First , because the evident tendency of man is to progress , of classes to rise , of the poor to work , and of the active to discover ; and they that are idle will be swept away as surely as the iron horse drives over the flesh-and-blood
horse that comes before him . Secondly , because what we now think is a position which admits of rest , is not so ; but our attainments are feeble , and we must move further forward . The beautiful is the limit of our wishes and our capabilities in any direction—the very acme of all work ; and to have attained that is more than we can ever say . There is no rest allowed to man , and he is always resting ; seeking for beauty when he is working in the ashes , and lying down in ecstasy when he is covered with mud or dust . The beautiful is constantly beguiling us , driving us on onwards when we should be still ,
or keeping us absorbed when we should be working ; it attacks us a £ children , and is our constant pursuit until we learn by painful necessity , that the useful must be encouraged , and then we follow it as little as possible , unless it be really with an ulterior view of obtaining the beautiful by its means . But even this is only in energetic men and nations . We may truly say in this respect , that the whole world lieth in ignorance or some kind of wickedness . To civilize man an immense amount of work is to be done , but his object is always to be comfortable ; nations have wanted glory , or fine towns ,
and men respectability or fine houses . Every man lias carried out this more or less , and rest from their labours is the constant object of every one in society that enjoyment may be followed . This state of things is a very plague in Kuropc ; it is a producer of the most appalling vice in some , and the most lamentable weakness in others ; it makes the young Htumble in their path , and the old incapable of using the position they liave attained to form good influences over themselves or others . It produces proud and selfish kings , that would rather build
forts and reign over beggars , than have a . smaller purse and a less splendid palace . This love of elegance , and luxury , and idleness- ^ -all the results of tho same emotion of the houI , that artistic love of beauty , without which man would be rude and unlovely- ' -ia still one of bis greatest curses , because it has been out of its place . As the worship of ( Jod , bis higheat emotion , has become the means of degrading him to the bigot , the tyrant , the slave , the villain , and the fool ; so the love of beauty Ijuh made him loae the Hteps that he thought to be gaining . ( 7 V > bo continued . )
1022 Ffifttf Vltbilt T* [Saturday,
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The Bachelor's Evening. I Am, As You Are...
THE BACHELOR'S EVENING . I am , as you are perfectly aware , a Bachelor A fact for which I trust I am sufficiently thankl ful ! Nevertheless , without indulging in imbecile " glorification of my state , I am too haughty a philosopher to shirk the truth when it presents itself " I scorn to deny that there are some trifling disadl vantages connected with the lonely grandeur of my condition ; e . g . I very often don't know where to pass my evenings . The study ? Oh yes , the study ! What , after a whole day spent with the
Fathers , or in prosecuting researches into the Coptic Drama , you propose that I should regale myself with books ! Now , if I had but a Partner of my life ( and copyrights ) , there would be a quiet cozy fireside at which to gracefully unbend my mind , and unbutton my straps . If I did but know what Tertullian , with savage sagacity , calls " the very bitter pleasure of children—Liberorum amarissimd voluptate ! " ( those fathers had such discernment ») , what evenings would be filled with enlightening their young minds and setting them copies in-round text ! If ! ah if !
This isolated condition causes me to drift about the world like a weed" Torn from a rock on ocean's foam to sail " Where ' er the waves or tempest's breath prevail . " Sometimes the waves wash me into a ball-room , sometimes into a theatre , and sometimes , as now , there seems no resting-place for the drifting weed —nothing but shoreless sea " Water , water , everywhere . " Parties have not begun ; theatres are closed . Where is the bachelor mind to recreate itself ?
I thought of this the other night when wandering aimlessly about . I passed down Oxford-street ; the Princess ' s was closed ; I continued my way down the Haymarket—the Theatre Royal and the Opera stood under the dim stars silent , joyless , dreary ; I sauntered past the Lyceum—it also stared at me with a blank and stony front , and I swept past the gigantic portico of Old Drury , which looked like a ghostly theatre . Closed , all closed ; The sounds of mirth , the clapping of hands , the stamping of feet , the sobs of agony , the quiet trickling of tears—all silent . No crowd rushes over the benches to secure good seats and for half an hour sits before that green curtain in
eager expectation ; no cracked voice announces " ¦ Oranges , apples , ginger beer , bill of the plaaay !" no juvenile visitors tremulously read over and over again the bill of play , as if to divine something of the rare pleasure in store for them . Behind the curtain struts no heavy , middle aged , perfectly stupid father of a family , thrown into the " villain" line , because his voice is ravenlike and bis legs are bandy ; no aspiring- understrapper thinks himself kept in the background ; no solemn mediocrity relates his experiences in the greenroom . The passionthe rant , the strut , the stamp .
, the animal spirits , the mechanical fun , the " gag , the " business , " the genuine admiration of each other ( when not rivals ) , and hearty sympathy m each other ' s success , the intense belief they nave in themselves , and the devotion of their whole lives to their art , —these , which make lk-lnnd tne Curtain a study , are now fled A few mice course about the dark stage . Silence reigns . Wo vanities , no heartburnings , no successes , no failures , no wigs , no spangles , no rouge ! i- | dullblank stare of the stony walls expresses the
, lifelcssnesH within . The theatre has closed- It its
invites no crowd to nightly enjoyment . Past doors the crowd hurries—though , in l > aKsin £ > strange associations will arise . The door oi a theatre , even when the season is over , how ^ awakens dormant memories of happy days , o anticipated pleasures , of delights surpassing anticipation ! We grow old , fastidious , / tlas / : ; but ^ never pass without emotion the scene oi <" former delights . to
So I mused as I wandered . It then occurred me thai I had neglected my beloved K «« U'i , not recording the fact that these tliwitros im closed their doors for awhile . What a cliai . t lost I In taking a survey of each season a re . y pen might , have filled several columns . w »« might one not have said of the management " Webster , Anderson , Kean and Kecley , ^ lIII " * and Mathcws ! how natural an occasion to n « ^ distributed fo each an appropriate t ;< mi l " , ' V critical laurel leaf , together with a hint . nlw > m J future production of ' * works of an elevating lency , " and similar councils which w » n » t >
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 25, 1851, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25101851/page/18/
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