Part 5 (1/2)
”Thou seest no beauty save thou make it first; Man, woman, nature, each is but a gla.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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.
How close an observer he became, even as a lad, is clearly shown in these lines, written as he lay under a tree, listening to the music of the birds:
”The creeping mosses and clambering weeds, And the willow branches h.o.a.r and dank, And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank, And the silvery marish flowers that throng The desolate creeks and pools among, Were flooded over with eddying song.”
He became so thoroughly acquainted with the various orders of vegetation with which his native land is clothed, and which mark the progress of the growth and development of plant and flower, that there is scarcely a false note in his music from first to last. His pictures of animal life are drawn in vivid master strokes, and are as notable for their correctness as for their grace. While we cannot speak of him as an astronomer, yet no one can read his verses without admitting that he was a close observer of the starry heavens. We could not rightly give him an equal place with Sh.e.l.ley as a painter of cloud-scenery, yet we know how he loved to lie on his back on the Down of Farringford and watch for hours the swiftly-moving and rapidly-changing panorama of the midday heavens. It was his chiefest joy to dream away his peaceful days among the trees and brooks and flowers. He sometimes spent weeks at a time in the open air wandering for miles in meditative silence along the banks of some sparkling stream, or over the sand and s.h.i.+ngle that form the dividing line between the land and sea.
His pictures are photographic in their fidelity, and yet, in them all, the outbursting life and movement of nature is carefully preserved.
They cover the widest possible field; dealing with the cloud and suns.h.i.+ne, the storm wind and the zephyr, the roaring of the ocean surge and the murmuring of the running brook, the cras.h.i.+ng of the thunder peal and the whisper of the pine-trees. The fields and the hedgerows, the flowers and the gra.s.ses, the darkness and the dawn; all are exhibited under every possible shade of variation. His studies of the beautiful are as broad and true to life as any that have ever been written. So sensitive was his soul to these outward impressions of beauty that even those acquired in childhood never entirely pa.s.sed out of his mind.
[Footnote: On Tennyson, see Dixon's ”Tennyson Primer” (New York, 1896); Van d.y.k.e's ”Poetry of Tennyson” (New York, 1894); Tainsh's ”A Study of Tennyson” (New York, 1893), and Tennyson's Poems.]
VIII.
THE LOYE OF KNOWLEDGE.
MEMORY GEMS.
Knowledge is the eye of the soul.--T. Watson
Common sense is knowledge of common things.--M. C. Peters
It is n.o.ble to seek truth, and it is beautiful to find it.
--Sydney Smith
It has cost many a man life or fortune for not knowing what he thought he was sure of.--J. Staples White
The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.--Sterne
It has been well said that ”Nothing is so costly as ignorance. You sow the wrong seed, you plant the wrong field, you build with the wrong timber, you buy the wrong ticket, you take the wrong train, you settle in the wrong locality, or you take the wrong medicine--and no money can make good your mistake.”
The knowledge attained by any man appears to be a poor thing to boast of, since there is no condition or situation in which he may be placed without feeling or perceiving that there is something or other which he knows little or nothing about. A man can scarcely open his eyes or turn his head without being able to convince himself of this truth. And yet, without a fair working knowledge of the ordinary affairs of life, every man is, in some respects, as helpless as a child. Indeed there is no kind of knowledge which, in the hands of the diligent and skillful, may not be turned to good account. Honey exudes from all flowers, the bitter not excepted, but the bee knows how to extract it, and, by this knowledge, succeeds in providing for all its needs.
Learning is like a river. At its first rising the river is small and easily viewed, but as it flows onward it increases in breadth and depth, being fed by a thousand smaller streams flowing into it on either side, until at length it pours its mighty torrent into the ocean. So learning, which seems so small to us at the beginning, is ever increasing in its range and scope, until even the greatest minds are unable to comprehend it as a whole.
Sir Isaac Newton felt this when, after his sublime discoveries in science had been accomplished, he said, ”I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem only like a boy playing upon the seash.o.r.e, and diverting myself by now and then finding a choice pebble, or a prettier sh.e.l.l than ordinary; while the great ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before me.”
Strabo was ent.i.tled to be called a profound geographer eighteen hundred years ago, but a geographer who had never heard of America would now be laughed at by boys and girls of ten years of age. What would now be thought of the greatest chemist or geologist of 1776? The truth is that, in every science, mankind is constantly advancing. Every generation has its front and its rear rank; but the rear rank of the later generation stands upon the ground which was occupied by the front rank of its predecessor.
It is important that our knowledge should be as full and complete as we can make it. Partial knowledge nearly always leads us into error. A traveler, as he pa.s.sed through a large and thick wood, saw a part of a huge oak which appeared misshapen, and almost seemed to spoil the scenery. ”If,” said he, ”I was the owner of this forest, I would cut down that tree.” But when he had ascended the hill, and taken a full view of the forest, this same tree appeared the most beautiful part of the landscape. ”How erroneously,” said he, ”I have judged while I saw only a part!” The full view, the harmony and proportion of things, are all necessary to clear up our judgment.