The absence of the love of nature is not an assured ground of condemnation. Its presence is an invariable sign of goodness of heart, though by no means an evidence of moral practice. In proportion to the degree in which it is felt, will probably be the degree in which nobleness and beauty of character will be attained.
One of our great artists has said, that good taste is essentially a moral quality. To his mind, the first, last, and closest trial question to any living creature is, What do you like? Tell me what you like, and I will tell you what you are.
Let us examine this argument. Suppose you go out into the street and ask the first person you meet what he likes? You happen to accost a man in rags with an unsteady step, who, straightening himself up in a half uncertain way, answers, "A pipe and a quart of beer." You can take a pretty good measure of his character from that answer, can you not? But here comes a little girl, with golden hair and soft, blue eyes. "What do you like, my little girl?" "My canary, and to run among the flowers," is her answer. And you, little boy, with dirty hands and low forehead, "What do you like?" "A chance to hit the sparrows with a stone." When we have secured so much knowledge of their tastes, we really know the character of these persons so well that we do not need to ask any further questions about them.
The man who likes what you like must belong to the same class with you. You may give him a different form of work to do, but as long as he likes the things that you like, and dislikes that which you dislike, he will not be content while employed in an inferior position.
Hearing a young lady highly praised for her beauty, Gotthold asked, "What kind of beauty do you mean? Merely that of the body, or that also of the mind? I see well that you have been looking no further than the sign which Nature displays outside the house, but have never asked for the host who dwells within. Beauty is an excellent gift of God, but many a pretty girl is like the flower called 'the imperial crown,' which is admired for its showy appearance, and despised for its unpleasant odor. Were her mind as free from pride, selfishness, luxury, and levity, as her countenance is from spots and wrinkles, and could she govern her inward inclinations as she does her external carriage, she would have none to match her."
The power to appreciate beauty does not merely increase our sources of happiness,—it enlarges our moral nature too. Beauty calms our restlessness and dispels our cares. Go into the fields or the woods, spend a summer day by the sea or the mountains, and all your little perplexities and anxieties vanish. Listen to sweet music, and your foolish fears and petty jealousies pass away. The beauty of the world helps us to seek and find the beauty of goodness.
The love of the beautiful is an unfailing source of happiness. In his brief life, Regnault, the great painter, had more genuine enjoyment than a score of men of duller perceptions. He had cultivated his sense of color and proportion until nothing beautiful escaped his eye. If we are to enjoy the beauty about us, there is need of similar preparation. What we get out of communion with the beauty of nature or art, depends largely on what we bring to that communion. We must make ourselves sensitive to beauty, or else the charms of form and color and graceful motion and sweet music will be unheeded or unappreciated. It is also true, as Lowell said:
"Thou seest no beauty save thou make it first;
Man, woman, nature, each is but a glass
In which man sees the image of himself."
ALFRED TENNYSON.
Alfred Tennyson, England's greatest modern poet, was a devoted lover of the beautiful from the very beginning of his career. The earliest verses he composed, which were written upon his slate when but a child of seven or eight years of age, had for their subject, "The Flowers in the Garden." As a dreamy boy, he loved to throw himself upon the grass and listen to the bird voices in the adjoining thicket, or to the lowing of the cattle as they stood knee-deep in the glittering waters of the river shallows which lay about his home.