377 of a human heart in making to its need a, Energy, victorious over obstacles, bears with it circle of work, and a home of rest, grows ideal and fine. enough of the ideal and admirable, to put Hence the glorifying even of crimes and hormany odious accompaniments into the shade. rors,-of War and Rapine. The Devil himself poet's brain, with a crown of splendour which comes out of the seething furnace of a great seems but "the excess of glory obscured." See the fiend of Milton, or of him who wrote Festus, that thunderbolt which has shivered the cloud it leaped from. You say it is a dull, prosy thing to dig and plant and grow potatoes. Dull only to a dullard, we say. Not to speak of the frank and healthy relations in which it places you to Nature, of the sweet breath of her fresh earth, the cool delight of planting the naked foot in the new-made furrow, and feeling the lifebreath of her wood-lungs playing on your cheek; the bare idea of human work victorious over clods and wilderness, is poetry. And is it nothing to be partners in the beautiful mystery of vegetation; to hear the old farmers reckoning on the coquettish whimsies of the moon in making or magnifying small potatoes?-though Lardner has exploded all that, and what poetry can be got of it must rank with the music of dying swans, very pretty, but, unfortunately, not true. Yet have you, by spade and hoe, to become co-workers with a power at once mys-making bright steel alive, and power which terious and beautiful; clasping one hand with a great, invisible agent, who refuses not to work for you, and whose other hand grasps the paternal palm of Deity. The Arabian Tales are imaginative enough, and their subjects poetical enough, you will agree. But your plough and hoe are potent as Aladdin's Lamp, to call to your service a Genius, stronger than ever wrought in the fables of enchantment. Heat and Cold, Moist and Dry, and all the busy sprites of Vegetation, will answer with obedient toil your right endeavour. You work magic in the earth, are master of the key which opens the wonderrealm of natural Faerie. Clods crystallize into blooms and fruits, in the path of your doing. Even your poor, despised potato-vine has much in it to think of, and thinking is poesy, when it gets deep enough to see the life of things, their harmony and meaning. Science has found somewhat in that green stem worthy of hard names; she gives "hard names" to her favourites, there are her "capillary tubes," her "spiral tissues," and one knows not what, of terms to designate the contrivances by which rude earth gets up into leaf and bloom, and down into fruit. Beyond all that science can bend to the yoke of its nomenclature, there is a strange residual force, there, as everywhere, which compels our admiration to give place to deepest wonder, and points us still to the everrecurring, insoluble miracle of Life. Admiration and wonder are large elements in the poetic. Whatever can bring with it great and beautiful suggestions, and under common aspects can make us conscious of a deeper than its apparent worth, in that view, and as far as it does this, is poetical. It ceases, there and thus far, to be low or vulgar. useful. The steam-engine, working its irreBut to return to things more unequivocally sistible way through rocks and mountains, notwithstanding the plaintive poet-philosophy of Wordsworth to the contrary, is an object poetical as the native rocks and primeval forests themselves. One can hardly speak prosily of them, even in deprecating their innovation, and disturbance of his quiet retreats. Iron energy, compressed will of fire and water, seems invincible, led captive by a little touch withal-are to me images full of right food for of a cunning hand-a smutty, work-day hand the imagination; can suggest great, musical thoughts; and yield the same high sense of victory, which an Æneid, or a marble Hercules might yield. The Magnetic Telegraph, the wonder of the vulgar, and the delight of the learned, though a result of the veriest practical, utilitarian direction of modern mind, is full of poetical imagery and meaning; is a symbol, and parent of many great ideas. Along those passive wires, unseen, and magical as mind itself, courses a stream of naked Thought, as silent and swift, for many thousands of miles, as in its mother-brain; it runs, and writes itself, as if it were conscious; putting into childish commonplace the extravagances of Eastern ro mance. Did he not speak more wisely than he knew, who first called those speaking wires the "Strings of a Harp?" He perceived, no doubt, that they give Eolian murmurs when the wind ripples over them; that they stretch, chordlike, and convey the thoughts of those who touch their master-keys. But did he think, too, in what larger sense they are the strings of a harp, the great Harp of our highest progress? All prophets have foretold diviner harmony, all poets have sung the promise of its day, and now all arts and mechanisms come, with linked hands, to herald that new morn. Our steam-chariots of commerce and communication, are war-engines, in a bloodless strife, to batter down the bastiles of old tyranny. Our iron roads are a stout warp and woof, flung off from the giant loom of Industry, who weaves the garments of the rejuvenating world. Whatever unites the scattered family of man, tends first to make neighbours, then friends, then brothers, of its dissevered members. Interests will seek to harmonize wherever they meet, and such as cannot unite, seek mutual destruction, and deserve it. Nothing can surpass the power of the Magnetic Telegraph to conquer time and space, distance and absence, and, while it is thus, nothing can surpass its final results in confederating humanity. The same demand of the soul which made it, will use it for a servant of all other wants, so that we can meet, all the world over, as soon as we are ready to meet. Whether one believes, or not, that its result will go to unteach national hate, ignorance, and sectional prejudice, its unforced suggestion of such a consummation makes it poetical, and more than we commonly express by that word, a prophecy of the annihilation of moral and mental distance, as of physical. It becomes then a harp, whose strings vibrate to eternity. In all the operations of life, there are harmonies of motive elements, or predictions of beautiful results, or further yet, indications of their own relations to higher spheres, and their capacity for more graceful action, which might relieve them from some sense of drudgery, might strip them of their duller weariness, and even gild their everydayness with a seducing beauty. We observe how the sentiment of Love robs the lowliest offices of their distastefulness and pain; how heroism and the love of glory walk thorniest paths, do vilest services, and never murmur while their aim stands yet beyond, and beckons them. These elements, love and heroism, are given us to sanctify and ennoble the lowly and the difficult, that the pride of a great purpose may dignify what a selfish pride would have disdained. Add to these, Wisdom to fathom deep causes and remote results, and Imagination to set in just perspective the too gross details of things, and to put forward the nobler images which love, wisdom, and heroism arouse, while she throws over all her own rose-light like a mantle, -and common life, with its dryest utilities, will be beautiful; the old feud between the ideal and the useful cease, and those alienated sisters will touch lips in amity. Reverse the subject, and take now a glance at the Use of Beauty. The very naming of the subject might draw a smile from the extremes of the spiritual spectrum; the high souls who are thrilled too deeply by sublime impressions, to think at what price they are quoted in the market, and those mint-coined disciples of the exchange, who know no value but of stocks, and who themselves will yet be the problem of some wiser utility. Somewhere we have met with a Gospel according to Bentham, whose grave author carried his question of use and worth to the daring absurdity of discussing the utility of a God. We are struck with a degree of the absurdity, and not a trifle of the irreverence of this ultimatum of Mammonism, in the doubt which suggests the question of the Use of Beauty. No high heart ever cherished it, neither of poet, nor artist, nor lover, nor any who had more than a critic's diagram for a soul, and a notion of beauty deduced from the harmonies of bookkeeping by double entry. To answer the question to him who needs no answer, were easy; intelligibly to answer it to him who needs one, is at best of problematical success. What is the worth of anything?—of bread, money, or railroad stock? All worths of commerce are convertible into money; but what then?-if that cannot be resolved to a more ultimate value, the miser must be the happiest of men, the very prince of beatified mortals. Then the golden streets of the New Jerusalem have a beauty which can be understood on 'change. But the ten thousand purposes to which all men, misers excepted, are ready to apply their money, prove another meaning to be affixed to it, than is read in its inscription; as if it said, "I stand for so much bread," or "clothing," or "glory," or other desirable thing to body or soul. Bread, clothing, and fame are not ultimate, either; one seeks them as means; and, traced to the last analysis, we see them all measures and methods of happiness, blessedness, peace, or pleasure. The worth of a thing is commensurate with the delight and growth of inner life which it can bestow, with the elevating thoughts it excites, the nobility of character it developes. Beauty, then, but for the immeasurableness of its value, might be set down in round numbers at the desk of the financier, having in a boundless degree the same elements of value which bread and houses have in a limited measure. Music, painting, poetry, love,which is beauty expressed in a refined sensation, are all candidates for a price in the salesman's schedule. Ask their lovers and devotees, what measure of delight is in them; whether comparable with the pleasures of a coach and livery, a full table and sideboard, or too divinely aloft above all sensual joys to bear the comparison. When we see how the sense of beauty is a perpetual rebuke to low aims, and a reinvigo rating impulse to the high; and that the poetic element is an eternal thirst for perfectnessas verily it is-we shall discern how nearly akin is this love of beauty to a moral sentiment. Its use becomes visible enough to one who knows the superiority of delicacy, refinement, and nobleness, over coarseness, vul garity, and the grovelling passions of the sen- doubts and fears, almost over his hopes, to a sual. This love has dwelt with all base passions, in some impure degree, but never without giving a redeeming feature to its possessor. The lily, white and pure, springing up from the foul bed of a tepid pool, is not the less a thing of beauty for its vile associates. It never defiles the waters, but rather adorns them, and lends a grace to what were else too poor to please us. It lends, too, a temptation to children to foul their white feet and washed linen in plucking them; for which let not our severe censors blame the lilies, or imitate the boys. Men can gather the rich sweets untainted, whether they glide over the dank pool of lilies, or the troubled waters of a Byron's soul. A beautiful landscape is a mute preacher, asking but an open heart and willing mind, to be the prompter of pure thoughts and serene delights. The majesty of Ocean will ennoble the soul that loves it, and speak in a thousand voices to his chastened fancy, all fit to widen his heart, and feed his mind with joy and greatness. If one has stood under the stars, at deep night, in the hush of all human sounds, and felt their quiet grandeur lift him over his vast consciousness of universal harmony ;-till, careless of the philosophies and opinions which he holds by day, he feels, rather than thinks, that this world is good, and bound to inevitable blessedness, he will understand, better than words can utter, of what use it is that the stars are beautiful. He must be painfully hopeless, to whom those fire-tongued, Pentecostal Evangelists can teach doubt and despair. Yet there is a kind of vastness in the impression of all very beautiful things which is painful, but deliciously so; and fine poetry, a great thought, or an exceedingly beautiful face, will sometimes draw tears from eyes which never moisten at a selfish grief. Thitherward are hearts wide open, that pride or strength have closed at every door besides. Beauty and Use are the two hands of God, and ever, when the one has made a creature for our good, the other adorns it for our delight; when the one has shaped a splendour to fill heart and eye, the other slips in a fibre of utility to satisfy our humbler wants; thus giving all things two wings to poise them in the universe, two hands to embrace our double nature in their clasp. RECORDS OF A SUMMER TOUR. BY MRS. CLARA MORETON MOORE. GENESEE FALLS. ON thy wild banks, oh, lovely Genesee, I stand entranced! gazing with calm delight As incense from some massive temple shrine, The crested cliffs, with all their wealth of green, NIAGARA, ABOVE THE CATARACT. River of banks, and woods, and waters green, NIAGARA, BELOW THE CATARACT. Heaves at the hidden organ's thunderous peal; For solemn thought-for deep and earnest prayer; Beneath, above, around me, everywhere; ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. Down, down we glide these "thousand isles" between, We dart adown the rapid's fearful whirl,- The wild "La Chine,"-peril on every side! FIGURE 1. Walking Dress.-Bonnet covered with rows of gauze and satin riband, open edge; a bouquet of flowers and foliage at the side, and an undertrimming of drooping flowers. The foliage is of the new and graceful kind manufactured out of lace. Robe of plain Japan blue velvet, high corsage, à la Louis XIII., open over the chest, but closed at the neck and waist. The jabot which the opening permits to escape, may be multiplied in rows, as taste shall dictate; sleeves straight, reaching half way from the elbow to the wrist, puffing undersleeves of tulle confined by a wristband. FIGURE 2. Visiting Dress.- White satin bonnet trimmed with a plume of ostrich feathers Robe of Chambord green damask, Amazone body; skirt very full and plain. Pardessus of very rich cherry-coloured velvet, lined with white satin, slightly wadded and quilted in squares. The sleeves of the robe are progressive and edged with a ruche of the same material. Undersleeves of tulle d'Alençon, very large, and gathered in a tight band at the wrist. FIG. 2. VISITING DRESS. FIGURE 3. Visiting Dress.-Capote of rich white fluted riband, ornamented with a large plume of ostrich feathers, which starts from the top, at the junction of the face and the crown, and falls to the left side, even to the shoulder. Robe of golden brown satin; sleeves Pompadours, trimmed with ribands. The other parts of the robe are without trimming; corsage high, flat and tightly boned: undersleeves à la Louis XIV., with three rows of flutings. Mantelet-pardessus of cerise velvet ornamented with a flat soutache running near the edge, and with a deep fringe round the pelerine, epaulettes and skirt; Swiss bracelets; hair demi-Sévigné. FIGURE 4. Toilette de Ville.-Straw bonnet, trimmed above with two white feathers, which start from the middle of the face, and, inclining backward, fall at last upon the bavolet or cape. Bavolet and undertrimming composed of black lace and narrow volants of red taffetas FIG. 4. Redingote and scarf-mantelet of light sea-green cloth. Corsage high; waist busked and rounded at the bottom; sleeves nearly straight, demi-large, and widening a little at the base. The whole is broidered in a very pretty design, with fine soutache and lace. The scarf-mantelet is finished with an exceedingly wide fringe of silk twist. Collar of lace, forming before a jabot falling back upon itself, or Cambrai lace, either matching the fichu or black. The and diminishing gradually toward the bottom. Undersleeves of lace, very rich, full and graceful. There are at present in Paris, an even greater variety than usual of fashionable toilettes. One of the most admired styles of morning dresses, is of white, or pale blue cashmere lined with taffetas, which turning over and forming revers, shows a beautiful quilting, in wreaths of pinks, roses, and foliage. With this toilette they wear small slippers of taffetas, quilted, corresponding in colour with the dress, and trimmed with plaitings of riband or very narrow lace. One of the French journals of the mode characterizes this as a perfect masterpiece of coquetry and good taste. Robes of silk are almost always trimmed with scalloped flounces, either ornamented with ruches or cut in points, and edged round with two or three rows of braid, velvet, or lace, very narrow. A pardessus or small casaque, slightly wadded and of the same material as the dress, is usually worn with it, and trimmed to match. There is also a kind of half-shawl, called fichu Parisien, which is very much worn. It is rounded both behind and in front, and may be trimmed with either deep fringe TOILETTE DE VILLE. material is usually cashmere, completely covered with embroidery or braidings. They are lined with white taffetas, wadded and quilted. High corsages are much worn, very open over the chest, the edges being trimmed with narrow velvets, or a mixed embroidery of soutache and velvet, or small Spanish bows, either of riband or of velvet matching the dress, and having small gold or silver tassels at the end. There are many things which indicate that flowers will be in great vogue this season, much more so indeed than usual. The favourite style of caps is that called Fontanges. It consists of a crown of tulle, ornamented with a wreath of coques of riband, with long ends. For elderly ladies, the cap called bonnet rosière is fashionable. It has a round head-piece, surrounded with a ruche, and is trimmed with a coronet of riband, plaited and gauffered by a new process. An evening cap, very much admired, is made of tulle illusion, which forms a veil over the hair and descends in long ends on each side. It is kept to the head by a coronet of eglantine. They call it in Paris, bonnet vestale. |