"You should touch all things with the same delicacy that one should bestow upon a tender flower. It shows that deep within yourself you are at rest, that you make your hands go forward to a task carefully and with much thought. In the roughest games you play do not forget this; then your hands shall be filled with all the thought you have within yourself."
Sometimes, when I am in a great gallery, the thought is very strong in me, that many (ever, and ever so many) people, in all countries and in all times, have so loved the beautiful as to devote their lives to it. Painters, who have made pictures to delight men for generations, looked and looked and prayed to find the beautiful. And we must believe that one looks out of the heart to find the beautiful or he finds only the common. And the sculptors who have loved marble for the delight they have in beautiful forms, they, too, with eyes seeking beauty, and hands so gentle upon the marble that it almost breathes for them, they, too, have loved the beautiful.
But commoner ones have the tenderest love for what is sweet and fair in life,—people who are neither painters nor sculptors. In their little way—but it is a true way—they have sunlight in their hearts, and with it love for something.
Perhaps it is a flower. I have been told of a man—in fact I have seen him—who could do the cruelest things; who was so bad that he could not be permitted to go free among others, and yet he loved plants so much that if they were put near him he would move quietly among them, touching this one and that; gazing at them, and acting as if he were in another world. As we said once before about the spring, so we may say here about love for the beautiful: it may be covered up with every thing that is able to keep it down, but it is always there.
It is always pleasanter to hear about people and their ways than to heed advice. But people and their ways often set us good examples; and we were curious, indeed, if we did not look sharply at ourselves to see just what we are. From all we have been told about the beautiful we can at least learn this: that it sweetens life; that it makes even a common life bright; that if we have it in us it may be as golden sunlight to some poor one who is in the darkness of ignorance, that is the advantage and the beauty of all good things in our lives, namely, the good it may be unto others. And the beautiful music we may sing or play is not to show what we are or what we can do—it will, of course do these things—but it is to be a blessing to those who listen. And how are blessings bestowed? Out of the heart.
Once there was a nobleman[66] with power and riches. He loved everything. Learning and art and all had he partaken of. But the times were troubled in his country, and for some reason he lost all he had and was imprisoned. Then there was scarcely anything in his life. All he had was the cell, the prison-yard, and, now and again, a word or two with his keeper. The cell was small and gloomy, the keeper silent, the yard confined and so closely paved with cobblestones that one could scarcely see the earth between them.
Yes, indeed, it was a small world and a barren one into which they had forced him. But he had his thoughts, and daily as he walked in his confined yard, they were busy with the past, weaving, weaving. What patterns they made, and he, poor one, was sometimes afraid of them! But still they kept on weaving, weaving.
One day, as he walked in his yard, he noticed that between two of the stones there seemed to be something and he looked at it. With the greatest attention he studied it, then he knelt on the rude stones and looked and looked again. His heart beat and his hands trembled, but yet with a touch as gentle as any one could give, he moved a grain or two of soil and there, beneath, was something which the poor captive cried out for joy to see—a tiny plant. As if in a new world, and certainly as if another man, he cared daily for the tender little companion that had come to share his loneliness; he thought of it first in the morning and last at night. He gave it of his supply of water and, as a father, he watched over it.
And it grew so that one day he saw that his plant must either die or have more room. And it could not have more room unless a cobblestone were removed. Now this could only be done with the consent of the Emperor. Well, let us not stop to hear about the way he found, but he did get his request to the Emperor and, after a while, what happened do you think? That the plant was given more room? Yes, that is partly it, and the rest is this: the prisoner himself was given more room—he was liberated.
Just because the seed of a beautiful thing came to life in his tiny world he found love for it and a new life, a care, something outside of himself. And it brought him all.