Marvelous

“ The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom
Of the unlit gulph of himself.
"Ye know not yourselves; and your bards—
The clearest, the best, who have read
Most in themselves—have beheld
Less than they left unreveal'd.
Ye express not yourselves;—can you make
With marble, with colour, with word,
What charm'd you in others re-live?
Can thy pencil, O artist! restore [247]
The figure, the bloom of thy love,
As she was in her morning of spring?
Canst thou paint the ineffable smile
Of her eyes as they rested on thine?
Can the image of life have the glow,
The motion of life itself? ”

“ There is a sweetness in song or in the cunning reimaging of the beauty we see; but the Magician of the Beautiful whispers to us of his art, how we were with him when he laid the foundations of the world, and the song is unfinished, the fingers grow listless. ”

“ And in that state of celestial existence which attends the redeemed Soul disenthralled from ‘the body of this death,’ is it to be doubted, that among the joys that ‘the eye hath never seen, nor the heart conceived,’ there exist colours beautiful beyond all earthly wealth of imagination; beyond the poet’s fancy and the painter’s dream? ”

“ Who would not willingly pierce the pensive gloom, or dwell among the brighter glories of the golden age, to acquire by a warm and glowing, but correct and chaste contemplation of the beautiful and sublime works of nature, these ravishing sensations, and gain this noble fervor of the imagination? ”

“ Can you possibly understand how the thought of a word could make me shudder? The mere idea of my being capable of thinking of anything that was not beautiful! When I longed to be only the embodiment of beauty—and sometimes I am beautiful! I look into the glass, and I seem to have something in my face that is a promise of a glory to come—a light, a something,—I love to imagine it. ”

“ In the next movement the soul turns to Art—Art in her myriad phases, radiant in beauty, gleaming with the thousand hues of the palette of romance. The soul wanders through scene after scene of ever-changing delight, each one more enchanting than the last. ”

“ Beauty, too, is a trivial matter: a beautiful spectacle, a beautiful face, or body, or gesture: a melodious voice, or noble statue—sunrise at sea, flowers in a garden, stars shining over the forest, the river by moonlight—or a lofty thought, an exquisite poem, an heroic sacrifice hidden in a profound and pitiful soul. ”

“ Yonder exquisite specimen of the skill of man, in which mind appears to shine through the marble,—that distant mountain which divides the clouds as they are driven by the winds across it,—those trees, amid whose branches the birds make most melodious music,—this flower, so redolent of perfume, so bright in colour, and so symmetric in form,—and that lovely being who, a model of beauty and grace, walks the earth an impersonation of love and charity blended, making, indeed, “a sunshine in a shady place,” are not realities. ”

“ Form, color, sound, unite and in some mysterious way become lambent with delicate or impassioned meaning. Here beauty is most intense. Charm is the expression of its expression, the measureless under-vibration, the thrill within the thrill. We catch from its suggestion the very impulse of the lyrist; we are given the human tone, the light of the eye, the play of feature,—all, in fine, which shows the poet in the poem and makes it his and not another's. ”

“ No sky that ever arched its head
Above a wonder-stricken two
Aghast at love, wore such a hue.
Only the Hand that never erred
Bent on beauty, creation-spurred,
Could mix and mingle such a dye,
Nor leave its like in earth or sky. ”

“ Say what we will, and a great deal may be said, of his lavish profusion, his heady and uncontrolled excess, in the richness of picture and imagery in which he indulges,—still there it lies before us, like the most gorgeous of summer gardens, in the glory and brilliancy of its varied blooms, in the wonder of its strange forms of life, in the changefulness of its exquisite and delicious scents. No one who cares for poetic beauty can be insensible to it. ”

“ The magic words of our great poet are the prism of the universe; all its wonders are there reflected, divided, and recomposed; sounds imitate colours, and colours are blended in harmony; rhyme, sonorous or bizarre, rapid or prolonged, is inspired by this poetical divination; supreme beauty of art! triumph of genius! which discovers in nature every secret in affinity with the heart of man. ”

“ All the beauty of the world was a part of it—the sun, the wide fields of clover, and the Summer rain. Moonlight and the sound of many waters, the unutterable midnights of the universe, Iris and the beauty of the marshes, where her name-flower, like a thread of purple, embroidered a royal tapestry. Beyond this still was the beauty of the spirit, which believes all things, suffers all things, and triumphs at last through its suffering and its belief. ”

“ Beauty, however, is like a temple in which the profane see naught but the external magnificence. The divine mystery of the artist’s thought reveals itself only to profound sympathy, and the inspiration in each detail of the sublime work remains unseen by the eyes of the vulgar. ”

“ We gaze upon those colors, ever changing in their lustre and variety, until imagination revels in its most delightful dreams, suggesting thoughts of the good and beautiful, and reminding how beauty lingers amid the most unpromising things of earth! ”

“ The splendor, the beauty, the glowing language of the scene, the strains of music, softer and more entrancing than ever swept across her senses,—the very picturesque effect of everything,—varied with every artifice of light and shadow, carried her away, and bore her to an ideal world, where she, too, had her homage of devotion, where her beauty had its worshippers, and she was herself loved. ”

“ Nowhere else in art is such a temperament revealed; never did inclination and opportunity combine to express such enjoyment. The mixture of flowers and gems and brocade, of blooming flesh and shining sea and waving groves, of youth, health, movement, desire—all this is the brightest vision that ever descended upon the soul of a painter. Happy the artist who could entertain such a vision; happy the artist who could paint it as the masterpiece I here recall is painted. ”

“ See how he turns about, and shows forth his gorgeous beauty. As the sun's rays strike upon him, the wonder grows: there is a subtle transmutation of colours, one glory vanishing and giving place to another. ”

“ An anthology from Job would be ample material for an article. All through the poem, thoughts flash into beauty as dewdrops on morning flowers flash into amethyst, and ruby, and diamond, and all manner of precious stones. In reading it, imagination is always on wing, like humming-birds above the flowers. You may find similes that haunt you like the sound of falling water, and breathe the breath of surest poetry in your face. ”

“ And yet I pine;—this beautiful completeness
⁠Is incomplete, to my desiring heart;
'Tis Beauty's form, without her soul of sweetness—
⁠The pure, but chiseled loveliness of art.
There is no longer pleasure in emotion.
⁠I envy those dead souls no touch can thrill,
Who "painted ships upon a painted ocean,"—
⁠Seem to be moved, yet are forever still. ”

“ O Beauty, thou art never half so rare And restful to the spirit as when thou Dost throne thyself amid the dome of night, The deep blue zenith that is scarcely blue, Where darkness scarce takes color, and the arch Of heaven glows with myriad misty fires, [Pg 116] That move like spirits in majestic space, And fill with inward music the great void That tunes itself to match the seraphim, And lifts the heart of man to higher planes Of strength and greatness. ”

“ A beauty,—not precisely real, even in its utmost manifestation, and which a painter would have watched long to seize and fix upon his canvas, and, after all, in vain,—beauty, nevertheless, that was not a mere dream, would sometimes play upon and illuminate his face. ”

“ Accustomed to personify the forces of nature, to tinge her cold abstractions with the warm hues of imagination, to clothe her naked realities with the gorgeous drapery of a mythic fancy, he fashioned for himself a train of gods and goddesses, of spirits and elves, out of the shifting panorama of the seasons, and followed the annual fluctuations of their fortunes with alternate emotions of cheerfulness and dejection, of gladness and sorrow, which found their natural expression in alternate rites of rejoicing and lamentation, of revelry and mourning. ”

“ The imagination shuns to reveal its workings, unless it can clothe them in some lovely and palpable shape, and create into existence the high romance, the mournful song, the animated canvass, or the carved marble ”

“ We talk here, naturally, not of non-poetic forms, but of those whose highest bid is addressed to the imagination, to the spiritual and the æsthetic vision, the mind led captive by a charm and a spell, an incalculable art. ”

“ Is beauty to the eyes, and truth unto the heart!
Outspread in yellow sands, blue sea and air,
Green growing corn, and scarlet poppies there;—
Regent of colours, thou, the undefiled!
Whether in dark eyes of the laughing child,
Or in the vast white cloud that floats away,
Bearing upon its breast a brown moon-ray;
The universal painter, who dost fling
Thy overflowing skill on everything!
The thousand hues and shades upon the flowers,
Are all the pastime of thy leisure hours;
And all the gems and ores that hidden be,
Are dead till they are looked upon by thee. ”

“ That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.
Fancy commands within her own bright round
A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
A single charm, that's not from Nature won,
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
A single hue unborrowed from the sun—
But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded raindrop, make
Colors as gay as those on Peris' wings! ”

“ Before me arose a vision of beautiful flowers—flowers that had thoughts as beautiful as themselves, and that through the genius of a man poured forth their souls in a volume of melody, so beautiful as to beggar description. ”

“ The beauty has a subtle enervating charm, languid and voluptuous, at the same time as clear and limpid in tone. The effect produced is one and whole, that of a perfect work of art, and the same impression remains with us afterwards. ”

“ It is not only that it is written with delicate art: but it is rich in atmosphere—a much rarer thing. The simplicity, the charm, the subtle implication of floating, evasive yet fluctuating romance, your own keen sense of the use of words and their veiled life and latent as well as obvious colour, combine to a winning and often compelling effect. ”

“ Honor returned his gaze with grave composure.
“That depends on yourself,” she answered. “All this,” and she indicated the wide and arid landscape, which, with the night dews still lingering on its gaping surfaces and sapless vegetation, sparkled in the early sunshine with a glitter as of silver and gems, “appeals to people differently. Some see in it beauty, and others only barrenness—but always it is impressive. It hurts or it pleases, according to the mood.” ”

“ Even the darkest spots are glistening by the surrounding beauty. All appears as an enchanted dream; a glimpse of fairyland, or as a primeval paradise modernized, and rendered suitable in every part to gratify the desires of the mind. ”

“ Beauty there is in the book; exquisite glimpses into the loveliness of nature here and there shine out from its lines,—a charm wanting which meditative writing always seems to have a defect; beautiful gleams, too, there are of the choicest things of art, and frequent allusions by the way to legend or picture of the religious past ”

“ The richness arising from the multiplicity of the parts—the great extent—the twilight gloom—the varying effects of the reflected light—the transparent green of the water—the echo of the surge rising and falling—and the profound solitude of the whole scene, must make a strong impression on any mind at{40} all sensible to beauty, in art or nature. ”

“ And I appreheud that it is this exalting or etherealising attribute of beauty to which all poets, all writers who would poetise the realities of life, have unconsciously rendered homage, in the rank to which they elevate what, stripped of such attribute, would be but a gaudy idol of painted clay. ”

“ Agreeable sensations and their harmony become the Beautiful. These blend and produce a general æsthetic sense. It becomes mystical, and is easily worked on by the alter-ego. The most inspired passages of every poet on the beauty of Nature betray clearly the influence and hidden power of the Dream in waking life. ”

“ And he poured forth his very soul in Beauty; Beauty as simple as the common flowers the whole world loves, and as true as the stars in heaven, Beauty that ravished the soul of the Neglected Child, opened its eyes to Radiant Joy, and lifted it along the ages. And the World bathed in Beauty, and loved him. Also its taste improved continually under the influence of his Art. ”

“ All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” ”