Alexander Walker

“ The landscapes of Claude Lorraine, the poetry of Milton, the music of the greatest masters, excite feeble emotions in our minds when our [Pg 117] attention is confined to the qualities they present to our senses, or when it is to such qualities of their composition that we turn our regard. It is then only we feel the sublimity or beauty of their productions, when our imaginations are kindled by their power, when we lose ourselves amid the number of images that pass before our minds, and when we waken at last from this play of fancy, as from the charm of a romantic dream. ”

“ We are not shown simply its effect upon an uneducated, artless individual—upon a mind in its singleness, and just awakened to its own capabilities of suffering and joy—but we see it operating in a wide and unquestioned influence, upon the spirit of a whole people. It was not demanded by fate that there should be merely a replacing of the piece of marble upon the pedestal from which it had been torn—it was required that the statue should be as royal in its Beauty as that was whose place it should supply. Beauty was the spirit-word of the destiny of Miletus. ”

“ They are like a beautiful cloud in the heavens, or a dew-drop on a leaf, which glitters and exhibits its beauties for a while, but the fervent sun absorbs both; or, they are like a gaudy flower, which a man fixes in his bosom—very lovely at first, but its attractions soon vanish. On the other hand, painful occurrences leave but a faint impression. Although, at first, a man may be bowed down with trouble, yet he will soon regain an erect position and a smiling countenance. A few weeks or months hide most of our sorrows from us ”

“ It has passed upon the spirit of Man like a thing of necromance—winning him to its command, and bowing him to its will, until royalty itself has stood powerless in its presence, and the poor mass of mortals, stricken and panting like cornered deer before the inexorable hunter. It has been the salvation and ruin of nations, as well as families and individuals—for queens have obeyed its supremacy as well as maidens, and kings squared their mandates, and regulated their course, by the “line of beauty.” ”

“ If Beauty is an outside principle, which they argue is of no utility, and quite unworthy of one who should look beyond the mere coating of this existence for his reward or his satisfaction, then we say that even an outside of loveliness and grace, is better than an interior of deformity, uselessness, indefiniteness, chaos—even though it pretend to be all spiritual, while it suggests little but nonsense, and is quite certain to end in nothing. ”

“ Implanted, then, so deeply as Beauty is in the human heart—so universal, that millions bow to it as something to fear while they worship—so certain, as a principle, that scarcely a human being can be said to walk without the sphere of its influence—it would be needless as well as unphilosophical to deny that the great object of its fixture—its enthronement upon its high place, should be one of no common character, or of a tendency and effect within us, which it would be wrong and inexcusable to overlook. ”

“ The power of Beauty operates widely, and everywhere. It takes the good man captive as well as the miscellaneous one, who has no definite rule to guide him on his wanderings. It bows the masters and teachers of men at its shrine, as well as the scholars and children of life. It draws the merchant from his desk—the philosopher from his chair. It gives new utterance to the poet, while it wins the statesman to confess that there is some virtue in the outside of the world, after all, and some attraction apart from the chaos of cabinets and broad seals. ”

“ During youth, especially, and among civilized nations, woman is farther distinguished by the softness, the smoothness, the delicacy, and the polish, of all the forms, by the gradual and easy transitions between all the parts, by the number and the harmony of the undulating lines which these present in every view, by the beautiful outline of the reliefs, and by the fineness and the animation of the skin. ”

“ Feeling and taste have done all that mechanics could not do; the rule and the compass have been quitted in order to profit by the eye; all the forms, all the outlines, and all the parts of the human body, have been realized in marble; and we have known nature better by the representation than by nature itself. It is by great exercise of the art of design and by an exquisite sentiment, that great statuaries have succeeded in making us feel the just proportions of the works of nature. ”

“ When, in great emergencies of the state, the sages and the soldiers of Athens, in solemn procession repaired to the temple of Minerva, turned their faces toward the statue of the goddess, and prostrated themselves in spirit before her—let the beautiful history of Grecian science tell, whether in the statue they worshipped the mere marble structure, or, in its forms and attributes, beheld and adored a personification of eternal truth and wisdom, and so prepared the mind for deeds which have rendered Greece for ever illustrious. ”

“ We take it, however, to denote that quality, or assemblage and union of qualities in the objects of our perception, whether material, intellectual, or moral, which we contemplate with emotions of pleasure; and we refer it to that internal sense, which is usually called taste. When it is asked, why a thing is beautiful, it is not always easy to find a satisfactory answer. We find beauty in color, in sound, in form, in motion, in everything. We have beauties of speech, beauties of thought, beauties in art, in nature, in the sciences, in actions, in affections, and in characters. ”

“ The mere sensual gratification, arising from the melody of an actor’s voice, is a very small part, indeed, of the pleasure which we receive from the representation of a fine drama: but, nevertheless, if a single note of the voice be absolutely cracked and out of tune, so as to offend and disgust the ear, it will completely destroy the effect of the most skilful acting, and render all the sublimity and pathos of the finest tragedy ludicrous. ”

“ The feeling of hope may be excited most powerfully by novel and unexpected circumstances. When the mariner has been long toiling in storms and dangers; when the heavens have been covered with darkness, and no information or guidance could be gained from the stars or the sun, the tempest suddenly ceases, the cheering sunbeams break upon him, and he finds himself, unexpectedly, near the haven where he would be—how does his heart exult with hope, and the consciousness of security! ”

“ It is owing to this force of pleasingness, which attends all the kinder passions, that lovers not only seem, but really are, more beautiful to each other than to the rest of the world; and in their mutual presence and intercourse, says a French writer, there is a soul upon their countenances, which does not appear when they are absent from each other or even in company that lays a restraint upon their features. Indeed, it will appear that all the ingredients of beauty terminate in expression, and this may be, either perfection of the body, or the qualities of the mind. ”

“ But the wonder ceases, notwithstanding, when we turn from record to our own experience, and see the effect, on others and ourselves, of what we once read about in the curious annals of our species. We now see the finished sculpture that delighted and softened the people of an age, gazed on and admired by every being whom we are accustomed to regard as [Pg xiii] rational. No one pretends to question, much less to deny the beauty of the lovely statue, in which the perfection of woman is portrayed in the finished feature or the swelling form. ”

“ And when a person, who has been nurtured in the lap of ease and comfort, and blessed with that best of all blessings (if it be rightly managed) , the gift of liberty, is torn from his home, and his family, and his engagements, and carried into a land of slavery, where he is laden with oppressive chains, and insulted by a cruel task-master, with no chance of freedom, nor any ray of happiness, how will his spirits sink, and how will the haggard lineaments of despair be drawn on that countenance which was formed for cheerfulness! ”

“ The motions of the horse, when wild in the pasture, are beautiful; when urged to his speed, and straining for victory, they may be felt as sublime; but it is chiefly in movements of a different kind that we feel them as graceful, when, in the impatience of the field, or in the curvetting of the manege, he seems to be conscious of all the powers with which he is animated, and yet to restrain them, from some principle of beneficence or of dignity. Every movement of the stag almost is beautiful, from the fineness of his form and the ease of his gestures ”

“ Moreover, while, in a dead black or any dark color of face, it cannot be pretended that, considering its color only, we should have more than blackness or darkness for admiration, it is evident that, in a fair complexion, we have, in addition to its general brilliance or splendor, the infinite variety of its teints, their exquisite blendings, and the beautiful expression of every transient emotion. ”

“ In beginning the career of life, woman is not yet truly woman; the characters of her sex are not yet decided; she is an equivocal being, who does not differ from the male of the same age even by the delicacy of the organs; and we observe between them a perfect identity of wants, functions, and movements. Their existence is, then, purely individual; we perceive none of the relations which afterward establish between them a mutual dependance; each lives only for self.
This conformity and independence of the sexes are the more remarkable, the earlier the age and the less advanced the development. ”

“ As has been observed, a single trait of rudeness, a severe air, or even the character of majesty, would injure the effect of womanly beauty. Lucian admirably represents to us the god of love frightened at the masculine air of Minerva.
While man, by force and activity, surmounts the obstacles which embarrass him, woman, by yielding, withdraws from their action, and adds to beauty, a gentle and winning grace which places all the vaunted power of man at her disposal.
It is evidently the influence of the organs distinguishing the two sexes, which is the primary cause of their peculiar beauty. ”

“ Payne Knight says: “When, at the age of puberty, animal desire obtrudes itself on a mind already qualified to feel and enjoy the charms of intellectual merit, the imagination immediately begins to form pictures of perfection, by exaggerating and combining in one hypothetic object every excellence that can possibly belong to the whole sex; and the first individual that meets the eye, with any exterior signs of any of these ideal excellences, is immediately decorated with them all, by the creative magic of a vigorous and fertile fancy. ”

“ But it is thence that spring woman’s suppleness and lightness of movement, and her capacity for grace of attitude.
It has been conjectured, that even the elements of the parts which constitute woman, have a particular organization, on which depends the elegance of the forms, the vivacity of the sensations, and the lightness of the movements, which characterize her.
The result of these circumstances is that, while man possesses force and majesty, woman is distinguished by beauty and grace. The characteristics of woman are less imposing and more amiable; they inspire less admiration than love. ”

“ Of the TRANSITIONS of beauty, I have now to observe, that, though one species of beauty always characterizes the same individual during every stage of life, yet it is remarkable, that the young woman (whatever species of beauty predominates) has always a tendency to beauty of the locomotive system;—that the middle-aged woman has always a tendency to beauty of the nutritive system;—and that the woman of advanced age has always a tendency to beauty of the thinking system. ”