IX. USEFULNESS OF ART




ESSAYS ÆSTHETICAL.




I.

THE BEAUTIFUL.


The Beautiful is one of the immortal themes. It cannot die; it grows
not old. On the same day with the sun was beauty born, and its life
runs parallel with the path of that great beautifier. As a subject for
exposition, it is at once easy and difficult: easy, from the affluence
of its resources; difficult, from the exactions which its own spirit
makes in the use of them.

Beauty--what is it? To answer this question were to solve more than
one problem. Shall we attempt what has been so often attempted and
never fully achieved? Such attempts are profitable. What though we
reach not the very heart of the mystery, we may get near enough to
hearken to the throb of its power, and our minds will be nerved by the
approximation.

To him who has the gift to feel its presence, nature teems with