Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 8th November 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 1070, Untitled Article

Page 1070
Page 18
18 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (2)
    • (DrgnmjafontH nf tjrt tytmk
    • ^ortfulh.
  • Text (8)
  • Transcript

    • 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.

      Untitled Article

      THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL . { Continuedfrom our last , p . 1022 . ) Pakt II . The greatest passion of man is and has been the love of female beauty . Pursued as the main business of life by a great portion of the race , it is not for us in this place to tell the train of good and evil that has followed it , but to tell how everything has given way before its vehemence : every advantage of every kind has been weighed as nothing before

      it , and this world and the next given up for a beautiful face . Better for us often that it were suppressed , at least at long periods of our life , and that the useful could receive more encouragement from us . This has been the theme of sages in all times ; and whilst poets have sung of beauty , graver men have spoken of its vanity , and the devotion of nations to hearts has been the distinction of some and the revolutionizing of others . Here

      it stands before us all , a moving power , infusing madness and energy into man , silent in none , but commanding some amount of obedience in all . If there be any power which can be said to be paramount in society , it is this power ; sung as an idle song , but no idle song , it is a force like gravitation itself , making every fragment respond to every surrounding fragment . Before it the useful stands ashamed—a dumb waiter , a mere receptacle for food to suit the beautiful . Before it armies and

      nations have stood , and still stand , using language which we can only recognize as mad , except when we give allowance for the homage of the beautiful . For it grave historians will write books , and a woman without character and without beauty of soul will have lives without number written of her , and millions of people in successive generations sympathizing with her , merely because she was beautiful . This prime passion of man is the direct loving of the beautiful in form , and proverbially destructive of all love of the useful as long as it endures in violence . For it men work and encourage the

      useful as a pain , and few see the grand meaning that it begins gradually to reveal . One other most powerful passion in man is beauty of sound ; it persuades almost all men , it turns as it were the soul to itself , and man becomes actuated by the spirit of the player . For this whole countries will any day leave their work , leave their most important occupations , and give way to a vague feeling of delight , a feeling which deeply enervates if much pursued , and takes from the power of the useful . So much , indeed , is this

      true that a great worker is rarely a musician ; and only with uncommon breadth and harmony of power is he likely to be so without loss to his work . It has become a curse to nations who have made it an end instead of a means , and has prevented civilization from growing with vigour . It diminishes though often by increasing emotion , and whilst it expands the feelings it refuses to concentrate the intellect . So true are these charges against music and to nome kinds of poetry , that

      men whose opinion ik not to be undervalued , have decried them altogether , judging from a true point of view , but not recognizing them as great portions of the general intellect which never acts vainly ; however , it is a passion which interferes with work ami is a pleasure . It in one which wants seldom to be encouraged , except as a lesson to learn ; und another instance of the way in which the beautiful comes first in our thoughts whilst the useful , uh a troublesome thing , is kept out of sight .

      There are few more common and more Htriking exatnplcH of the excitability of >» -m entirely disconnected with the useful , than that of music ; it ih itself a powerful pasHion , and plays upon hit * other paHHumn as he himnelf does on an instrument . It it * a strange and unseen power holding him in Iiih grasp , moving him at its will , bending him into beautiful postures , or whirling him about in violent action . Men have aung and danced since creation , 1 suppose ; these passions arc frequently mere excess of spirits , whether acquired by natural or artificial means : savages and children begin

      without teaching in their own way , and civilized men give much attention to them . Yet , how much better for us had it been if the ancients who sung had worked better , or if many of the poets , instead of giving us their vanities , had told us how the people round them worked . I am no despiser of poetry , but I certainly would rather have read an account of the trades of Rome from Virgil than his musical verses which make up the Mnexd . It would have been better for us if he had told us how

      they built bridges , forts , or piers , than told us his ideas about people about which he knew very little . How much better too for Italy would it have been , had he left such a record of work done to guide it in after times ! He did guide it , and they copied him , and left behind the works of Rome , giving him great glory , but losing all that rendered their own country and civilization stable . The love of the beautiful lived on when the useful was forgotten , and there , as in other places , became to the country a disgrace and a crime .

      What are called the nobility of all countries have a steady instinct towards the beautiful ; because when necessity is supplied , the instincts have free scope , but the necessity is a power raised for the useful which has been neglected , whilst the higher classes have covered themselves and their houses with glitter , with a bare stratum of necessity below it . They have , as it were , covered their savage bodies with gold dust , and made themselves gay mansions when rags were around their doors , and whilst even they had not what we call the conveniences of life , like all others seeking the end too

      fast—catching the moon . It is painful to look at the state of things in many cities and countries where vanity puts down the useful , where they are so ignorant of it , that they imagine to have attained it by keeping a thousand apparently useful slaves . When all Nature is full of power , under their feet and around them full of wisdom and ingenious devices , they stand contented with a clumsy and dangerous machinery , badly ministering to their unsatisfied wants . The beautiful , like the life of man , is to a certain limit profusely scattered around us , and the useful , like a higher life , is revealed only to him who is content to learn .

      Merchants may be said to have best known the useful in past times ; but even they must not be supposed to have seen it clearly . With a shortsighted view of their own powers only , they have moved slowly , nor is it until late times that it has become clear that merchandise is to the civilized man as the scholastic debate to the sharpening of the wits . He has hitherto been obliged to minister to the beautiful until invention began ; he

      has not seen the valuable portion of civilization , nor has he seen the elevation of the species , by his endeavours . He has imitated the nobles , and they have run the same race blindly in catching the moon and the rainbow . And men have admired both , only wishing to imitate them , thinking that the great end of their labours was attained when they got wealth and had fine houses , whereas that was merely the wages which Providence gave them for their trouble .

      Even the workmen and mechanics are only learning the value of the useful , and in this and a few other countries only few delighting in their work as a science , or an occupation of the mind , but merely as a weary mode of getting their living . A 3 soon as one sees the value of his work he begins to see also improvements , and he that docs ho takes a position above his fellows so rapidly , that a few years change entirely his social relations . This clear idea of the useful which has become so distinct in later times lias entirely mixed society , and blood is now forgotten , for the best blood is that

      which produces the best brains . Still here also among workmen there is an admiration of the beautiful to Mich an extent that they undervalue their own position , and are not aware of their value in the world as individuals , nor of the great rank that as a whole they take an practical students of the forces of nature , making experiments daily to bring out its character . They do not know that every engine , as well uh every pickaxe of a mine , or spindle , or telegraph , dovelopes to us gradually the character of creation , and as a consequence reveals to us the mind of the Creator . It is true that in

      great conquering armies the private soldiers hav ( been found bent on the most trivial or degrading amusements , but the best deeds have been done by those hands in whom tin ; spirit of the general and aim of the engagement was imbibed by every individual . ( l o be continued .

      Untitled Article

      The Executive Committee of the National Chart Association mefas usual . Mr . G . J . Hol yoake 8 ^ d he had been requested by Mr . C . D . Collet , the active secretary of the Committee for the Repeal of the Taxe on Knowledge , to state that that committee were d sirous of obtaining the aid of the Executive Com mit " tee in getting up a vigorous agitation for the purpose of effecting the entire abolition of all restrictions which act as a barrier to the progress of free thought and

      intelligence . A long conversation ensued on the pro priety of carrying out a series of public meetings calling the attention of the people to the various poli . tical questions of importance in which the body politic were deeply interested ; and it was ultimately agreed on the motion of Messrs . Holyoake and Le Blond * 41 That the Secretary be instructed to invite Mr . Collet to attend the next meeting of the Executive , in order to explain his views . " Afcer the transaction of finan .

      cJal and other business , the Committee adjourned to Wednesday , November 12 . —Signed , on behalf of the Committee , John Arnott , General Secretary .

      Untitled Article

      CHARGES AGAINST THE NATIONAL AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORMERS . Many of our Chartist readers have been looking for some notice of Mr . Haruey ' s letter from Troon , which appeared in this paper on October 18 . It is not the intrinsic force of the kind of remarks there indulged in that demands for them any formal notice , but the usefulness of discussing errors which still have the fascination of truth for great numbers , whose experience in politics should before this have undeceived them . If , however , one like Mr . Harney is untaught by time , how

      can it be expected that those to whom lie is an oracle , can be better informed ? If one of Mr . Harney ' s race so reasons through the passions , no wonder that Mr . Ernest Jones , a native of a more ardent nation , should still continue with his greater talent to maintain those conscientious obstacles to that nationality of action we all desire to see brought about . Mr . Harney tells us that because of the " present nothingness of Chartism" the game of political humbug will , as heretofore , be successfully played by sham reformers , through the want of a more powerful body to spoil that game .

      The truth is that the National and Parliamentary Reformers , to whom Mr . II . refers , have agreed to demand a larger measure of Reform than the middle class of this country ever demanded before , which indeed is so near the Charter ' s own dimensions as to be mistaken for it by the upper class . Indeed , what the Parliamentary Reformers demand makes so valid a whole that it would , as the editor of this paper lias asserted ( Nov . 1 . ) enable us to complete the Charter " easily " after the enactment of their plan . Hut , at this point , the real question is , not what is the value of their proposed Bill of Rights , but are they sincere in demanding it ? The men who compose that Association are individually as honourable as those

      who compose the Charter Association , li y what ngire then does Mr . Harney sit in suspicious judgment over them , and declare their programme a " game of political humbug" ? If they are to be stigmatized as f / iam nformers" because they do not come up to Mr . llarnij point , why should not they stigmatize Mr . Ilarneya " his colleague as " sham reformers , " who demand what is less likely to be carried , and are therefore open to e imputation of betraying reform by demanding whaUecii ^ to our enemies a wilful exaggeration of Ht \ nd \ he liability is , that the Parliamentary Reformers and t ^ Cbai lists both demand those measures which , ' . _ respective estimates of the nation ' s temper ai d " gence , seem likely to lead to practical good , j > ' << gence , seem ukh , « - - " '" * " il i conscientious nd

      r ... each pursues is an honest policy , a a ,, " nfluusivo duty , and ought not to be represented by the uliui epithet of being a " gaiiif . " For myself , I coincide with Mr . Harney as to the tnre . of the measure wanted . I have held tl . < < - « ^ _ aH long us himself , and have no more HwerveU i ^ vocaey than himself . It . is , however , a pl « ¦ i ""^ sUtB to witness a growing and powerful |«» ly vt . 1 ) fured coming so near to what I think the t . uth , an dl ^ ^ , tofxprenH my gratification at the 'l ( l- ' OnuruHtH ) cautious and reflective ^ liticians th . it vv ( I ¦ c IIlCI , t have not mistaken the road of «» l » ' » jf ^ ,, adwheu ho many other peiHonN loruuny , inoKt verse , publicly > . et out on the same . » , » fact , come , up to uh . To comprehend tlu valux „ , ( , r ifyamllo , I 11 IOUIH ! 1 . it , Mr . Harney n ™ ^ " ' j ' t- for . »« THing" and " trumpeting the I »« . ¦ l . any t . t . y " ¦ > rt whereas it is only an honest tlui .. kl . n hh' , r . ^ d , he , render uh by their «<«> " » ; <¦» „ j "" 1 ) V ' , ir ,. ««*« uim

      for the credit . u » ey ... " ""^ f ^ h ,,,- u »« Sffi ^ £ S ^ -- progress of our principles ? « , . fi « h at 1 , S ! llP course of Hir Joshua Walm » l « jy P <¦ ( 1 ( ,

      Untitled Article

      "We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful for the Useful encourages itself . —Gokthe .

      Untitled Article

      1070 ® ft * V f * >**? [ Saturday ,

      (Drgnmjafonth Nf Tjrt Tytmk

      ( DrgnmjafontH nf tjrt tytmk

      Untitled Article

      POLITICAL AND SOCIAL .

      ^Ortfulh.

      ^ ortfulh .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1851, page 1070, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1908/page/18/