Vivacity

“ 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. ”

“ It is only when the shadow is not there, when the clouds of winter cover it, that the dial is terrible. The invisible shadow goes on and steals from us. But now, while I can see the shadow of the tree and watch it slowly gliding along the surface of the grass, it is mine. These are the only hours that are not wasted—these hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance. Does this reverie of flowers and waterfall and song form an ideal, a human ideal, in the mind? ”

“ WHEN the last song is sung, and the last spark
Of light dies out forever, and the dark,
The voiceless dark eternal shrouds the earth;
When the last cries of pain and shouts of mirth
Sink in the desolate silences of space;
Where then shall flower the beauty of your face,
O Love the laughing. Youth the rose-in-hand,
In what unknown and undiscovered land
Shall flower then the beauty of your face? ”

“ The threefold echo of virtue, truth, and beauty, created by the music of the spheres, calls us from this hollow earth to the neighborhood of the music. Why and wherefore were these desires given us? Merely that, like a swallowed diamond, they should slowly cut through our earthly covering. Wherefore were we placed upon this ball of earth, creatures with light wings, if instead of soaring with our wings of ether, we are to fall back into the earth-clods of our birth?... ”

“ Even so it is with these hidden faculties or susceptibilities of which I have been speaking. In the notes of witching music, in the numbers of poesy, in the sight of beauty, either of nature or of art, either æsthetic or moral, these silent powers recognize a faint approximation to that beauty with which they will have to do in that world where they shall be called into action: they too recognize the kindred spirit, and, springing forward to meet it, vibrate in unison with the chord. ”

“ As his own white plume that high amid death
Thro' the field has shone—yet moves with a breath!
And oh, how the eyes of Beauty glisten.
When Music has reached her inward soul,
Like the silent stars that wink and listen
While Heaven's eternal melodies roll.
So hither I come
From my fairy home,
And if there's a magic in Music's strain,
I swear by the breath
Of that moonlight wreath
Thy Lover shall sigh at thy feet again.
'Tis dawn—at least that earlier dawn
Whose glimpses are again withdrawn, [312]
As if the morn had waked, and then
Shut close her lids of light again. ”

“ The spirit floating over these forms of beauty, and adorning them with all the richness of colour—painting the rose, and giving perfume to the violet—is, in the poet’s mind, one which ascends to nearly the highest point of etherealization, and which becomes, indeed, to him a spirit of light; they ride upon the zephyrs, and they float, in all the luxury of an empyreal enjoyment, down to the earth upon a sunbeam. ”

“ As the Graces round the throne of Venus, so music, painting, sculpture, wait as handmaids round the throne of Poetry. "They from her [76] golden urn draw light," as planets drink the sunbeams; and in return they array the divinity which created and inspired them, in those sounds, and hues, and forms, through which she is revealed to our mortal senses. The pleasure, the illusion, produced by music, when it is the voice of poetry, is, for the moment, by far the most complete and intoxicating, but also the most transient. ”

“ It is this quickness, this delicacy of feeling, which enables us to relish the sublime touches of the poet, and the painter; it is this, which expands the soul, gives an enthusiastic greatness, mixed with tenderness, when we view the magnificent objects of nature; or hear of a good action. The same effect we experience in the spring, when we hail the returning sun, and the consequent renovation of nature; when the flowers unfold themselves, and exhale their sweets, and the voice of music is heard in the land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shadow and light, heat and cold, tempest and quiet days, have all wrought together before the blooming of the flower which in its perfect grace and beauty gives no hint of its troubled growth. As the consummation of all toil and struggle and anguish, there comes at last that deep repose, born not of idleness and indifference, but of the harmony of all the elements in their last and finest form. ”

“ Through the leaden, racking burdens of the night, a flood of cleansing light entered his soul, a passionate thirst for life once more. The world outside was good, full of vibrant, joyful sounds—children’s voices, laughing as they danced to the music of a hurdy-gurdy, the long chatter of scolding sparrows, tiny sounds and yet teeming with life, its curiosity, its health, its response to sensations, pleasant, intense, and intoxicating. ”

“ In no place or season can the triumph of nature over art be so vividly expressed. The proud fabric of man's ambition, toil, and ingenuity, totters and decays; while the frailest of Nature's works, the delicate flower, whose individual life is but a day, springs, ever renewed, in undiminished vigour. ”

“ Pile note on note the infinite music that flows increasingly to your soul from the tactual sonorities of a thousand branches and tumbling waters. How can the world be shrivelled when this most profound, emotional sense, touch, is faithful to its service? I am sure that if a fairy bade me choose between the sense of light and that of touch, I would not part with the warm, endearing contact of human hands or the wealth of form, the nobility and fullness that press into my palms. ”

“ The world had always been full of intimations of joy and beauty, perhaps not felt, but always divined. Why, the sight of a flower would cause my heart to lift with joy; in my ears was always an unheard music, as if sweet, echoing bells had always just rung, or were just about to ring. But that quite left me; the world became toneless, drained of color. ”

“ Oh, music of the spheres, of which we dream but never hear!—you alone have revealed it, for you alone possess that touching language, at once radiant and heart-thrilling, yet penetrating, like all real beauty, like that divine essence whence you emanate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, as an expression of sentiment, Music still surpasses painting. What it expresses is the soul itself, in its most intimate and profound relations; and this by a sensuous phenomenon, equally invisible, instantaneous, intangible—sound—sonorous vibrations, which resound in the abysses of the soul, and agitate it throughout. ”

“ Thus by increasing the size of our unit we build the rhythm of form and lay the foundation for the further development of the Art.
Since Nature is regular, from the beating of our own hearts to the swing of universes in the heavens, therefore engrained in our very selves is this claim for ordered progression, balance, and sustained sequence. When we attain this, whether in Music or otherwise, we derive a measure of restfulness and satisfaction and we gain a sense of completeness. ”

“ Who has questioned the artist to whom the forms of his thought are vivid as the forms of nature? Artist and poet have rarely been curious about the processes of their own minds. Yet it is reasonable to assume that the highest ecstasy and vision are conditioned by law and attainable by all, and this might be argued as of more importance even than the message of the seers. I attribute to that unwavering meditation and fiery concentration of will a growing luminousness in my brain as if I had unsealed in the body a fountain of interior light. ”

“ The sunset has passed through every stage of beauty, through every glory of colour, through riot and triumph, through pathos and tenderness, into a long, dreamy, painless rest, succeeded by the profound solemnity of the moonlight, and a stillness broken only by the night cries of beasts in the aromatic forests. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, all the sweetest sounds your soul has ever heard or dreamed of, blended into one 420harmonious whole, swelling louder, clearer, and sweeter, or melting away into the far-off distance, like the gentle fading of a glorious sunset, absorbed by a finer and more ethereal beauty of azure brightness, and you will have a faint conception of the music and the singing of the spheres. ”

“ Shadows of beauty flit around,
But beauty from which bloom has fled;
And music echoes from the walls,
But music with a dirge-like sound;
And pale and silent are the guests,
And every eye is on the ground. ”

“ I knew that whereas we had seen the Wonderful in beautiful though local forms there is a plane where the Formless may be apprehended in clear dream and solemn vision-the meeting of spirit with Spirit. What that revelation would mean I could not guess—how should I?—but I knew the illusion we call death and decay would wither before it. There is a music above and beyond the Ninth Vibration though I must love those words for ever for what their hidden meaning gave me. ”

“ The music of the spheres played its great harmonies to his fastidious ear; the rhythm of a universal poetry, too exquisite to find expression in mere words, settled upon a mind ever attuned to vastness, till the drab miseries of humanity seemed well-nigh fallen away, and the petty fret of everyday life, the chafing, the disillusion, the smart of pride, the cry of the senses, were as forgotten things.—His soul was filled with visions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sweet light shall couch by flowery sapphire and blue violets, and dance with jocund joys where the white daisies tesselate the mead; then memory shall illuminate itself—turn out its store of images bright as at their creation; then shall the soul arrange its myriad hues of by-gone time; dwell over the glory of the spiritual scene, until, in extasy and grateful joy, a voice shall shout,—"How beautiful is Light." ”

“ Where all the treasures that inanimate nature can furnish are scattered in profusion—where the air is fragrant with perfume, and vocal with melody, how vainly do we look for the freshness and animation, and the simplicity and single-mindedness of buoyant and delighted youth! ”

“ But mark how beautiful an order has sprung from the dust and blood of this fierce chaos! how the world, as from a resurrection, balancing itself on the golden wings of knowledge and of hope, has reassumed its yet unwearied flight into the heaven of time. Listen to the music, unheard by outward ears, which is as a ceaseless and invisible wind, nourishing its everlasting course with strength and swiftness. ”

“ Carry out the theory to its legitimate result, and we shall see that if it were possible to produce, here on earth, music equal to that which rings through the celestial arches—if it were possible here to create beauty in any form, which should fully equal that which shall greet the freed spirit on its entrance into that better world, then indeed would our emotions reach their highest possible climax ”

“ To hear the cries of earth in melody,
To know 'tis night but when the stars are gleaming,—
Ah, not for me.
Music of form and colour's mystery,
The joy of fashioning in fairest seeming
Life's dullest clay and Winter's barest tree ”

“ A place where a Divine would confess that he never had fancied Paradise—where the painter’s palette would lose its beautiful tints—the blood-stirring notes of eloquence would die in their utterance—and even the soft tones of sweet music would scarcely preserve a spark to light the soul again that had passed this sweet delirium. ”

“ There are strains in music which bring a faint shadow of the picture back to me; no art can ever reproduce it. How balmy the faint breath of wind that seems to lift upward the light, gray clouds, to make way for the rosy tints creeping athwart the horizon! ”

“ He had wondered then that Nature could so paint the two sides of this thinnest of all canvases: the outside merely daubed over that it might resemble the dead and common and worthless things amid which the creature had to live—a masterwork of concealment; the inside designed and drawn and coloured with lavish fullness of plan, grace of curve, marvel of hue—all for the purpose of the exquisite self revelation which should come when the one great invitation of existence was sought or was given. ”