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    them fit up the fine old mansion , let the beautiful daughters show themselves in the village , the church be repainted , the road be made more picturesque , then the spirit of the meanest changes , the beautiful has got encouragement , and the useful becomes only a necessity . The word beautiful has various meanings ; amongst some it is the highest point to which the soul can attain in any direction : this is a sense which , although far from being the original one is a true and genuine sense , and may be called the intellectual or final sense . In this sense the power

    of the beautiful has always been great when not deteriorated , the differences have existed in the change of direction . When we look rapidly over nations and their histories , there is a melancholy pleasure in observing that they have always been ruled by some ideal power to which they have paid obedience more or less blind . A melancholy delight we may truly say , because it is at the same time piteous to see what a poor idea they often set up of their extreme limits of perfection . It is enough for us here to know that when the meaning of the word beauty is the highest thing for which we look , then it has had power to move mankind when the useful and all other things have failed . The hope of every nation is towards a something

    beautiful , the wish lying at the foundation of every man ' s wishes -is towards something beautiful ; our predecessors sought it with painted bodies , in wisdom and hopes of a Druidical faith , and our more energetic ancestors sought it in action and in fame , and in the hope of a happy heaven , whilst their life seems to have moved on with true and wholesome excitement as far as it went . Age on age went by , and their hopes did not diminish , although faith upon faith fell before time . There was still the great wish of mankind , fervid within them , taking some shape or other of the beautiful ; but the treasures of the useful under their feet lay like so much earth , merely ground only to prevent them from falling into the abyss which its absence would cause . So that the elements of civilization

    to-day , the . tools wherewith we conquer mankind , and convert savages into men and slaves into freemen , were mere matter to fill up space absolutely unconnected with ideas . Men seem to have stood on this earth as strangers-, and not viewed it as a part of themselves , as the material out of which they and their ideas were to be worked . The mind very easily sees the abstractly and the simply beautiful ; it is a passion of man in fact , and he did not know and does not know how to attain it . Me hp . s tried the whole

    realm of emotion , and is dissatisfied ; he sees great ends before him , and is disappointed that he does not attain them . The great end was almost as well seen in early times as now with our great learning , and in some nations much more clearly seen ; as our learning abundantly proves to us . The propagation of religion lias been a , passion with many nations , and its success has always been great from the intense love which man has of abstract perfection ; but he has determined to hit the end at once , and like the child he seizes at the moon . The road to knowledge is tedious ; to communicate instantaneously with distant persons was an old enough idea , but to do it was the result of a long series of discoveries , which apparently were leading to no such end There is a sameness as well as a loftiness in the

    aims of all men ; the end is alike , from the idle dreamer about paradise on earth , to the active pursuer of pleasure upon it ; and from him who looks only to heaven , to the man who works steadily at what lies before him . If we look at the higher literature of all nations , we see this very clearly ; the poetry of all times and places can be admired even now , and the eloquence of ( ireece and Koine are eloquence to us , whilst , the preacher . still makes but a poor approach to Isaiah , and Watts is hut a poor representative of David . When looking at men in this point of view , we are inclined to think

    men arc everywhere the name ; their emotions are repetitions only ; and when we . see them making no advance , we are ready to lose 1 ' jtilh in the value of life , in the existence of anything worth living lor in man . Itut when we look on him as oik ; to be civilized , we rise at once into , another field oi thought , and the modern man becomes a ( superior being , having powers that were once ; fnipei human . We still Nee thetfoal , but we feel that we must run for it ; we still see the moon , but we do not expect to catch it l > y putting out our hands ; we have learnt ittt distance . The whole realm of the past ban only been a step , unluHH we call it a failure ; the realm of metaphysics

    and of poetry , and of war , and-fif emotion , and aspiration , and despair , and every Other feeling of which man has been capable , has been found unfit to produce all the result of knowledge , satisfaction , and happiness wanted . Every power has become corrupt , and died disgracefully , becoming an evident curse before its fall , in the various countries which have typified each . Greece proved sufficiently that intellect would not make a nation happy , having tortured itself into an utter weariness of truth and of falsehood , and

    lost the object of living . Rome and other nations before and after showed that glory could neither make men nor nations happy , got at the expense of more wretchedness than could be removed by benevolence or by power . And Sybaris was not the only place which showed that luxury did not produce happiness , not even the supply of all things most satisfying to the eye and to the senses generally , failing as they do in making up a harmonious whole . It is a favourite and well known topic of historians , the enervation of society when the love of the beautiful begins ; prosperity is attained by work ; those who care not for the beautiful , who work for the real and the useful , subdue by a wellknown and natural law those who dwell in refined emotions , or in emotions of taste , which may be refined or merely vague . Great nations , like great men , have begun in energy and poverty , and the beautiful has been sought as a relaxation after labour ; it is an end to be looked for , but we must be cautious how we think we are ready for it . When a nation has began to ornament itself and forgotten

    the useful , the fall must surely come . Let us not seek , like the children in the Pilgrim's Progress , to have all our toys now , and nothing afterwards . If a man thinks he has attained , he has still to think of his neighbours ; and if one class has attained , it must think of the others ; and if one nation has attained , it must think of foreigners . As long as seveneighths of mankind are unprotected in some respect , it is not for any class to be idle and give themselves tip to happiness . First , because the evident tendency of man is to progress , of classes to rise , of the poor to work , and of the active to discover ; and they that are idle will he swept away as surely as the iron horse drives over the flesh-and-blood

    horse that comes before him . Secondly , because what we now think is a position which admits of rest , is not so ; but our attainments are feeble , and we must move further forward . The beautiful is the limit of-our wishes and our capabilities in any direction—the very acme of all work ; and to have attained that is more than we Can ever say . There is no rest allowed to man , and he is always resting ; seeking for beauty when he is working in the ashes , and lying down in ecstasy when he is covered with mud or dust . The beautiful is constantly beguiling

    us , driving us on onwards when we should he still , or keeping us absorbed when we should be working ; it attacks us as children , and is our constant pursuit until we learn by painful necessity , that the useful must be encouraged , and then we follow it as little as possible , unless it be really with an ulterior view of obtaining the beautiful by its means . But even this is only in energetic men and nations . We may truly say in this respect , that the whole world lieth in ignorance or some kind of wickedness . To civilize man an immense amount of work

    is to be done , but his object is always to bo comfortable ; nations have wanted glory , or fine towns , and men respectability or fine bouses . JKvery man has carried out this more or less , and rest from their labours is the constant object of every one in society that enjoyment may be followed . This state of things is a very plague in . Kurope ; it is a producer of the most appalling vice in some , and the most lamentable weakness in others ; it makes the young stumble in their path , and the old incapable of using the position they have attained to form good influences over themselves or others . It produces

    proud and selfish kings , that , would rather build forts and reign over beggars , than have a smaller purse and a less splendid palace . This love of elegance , and luxury , and idleness—all the results of the name emotion of the soul , that artistic love of beauty , without which man would be rude and unlovely is still one of bis greatest curses , because it lias been out of its place . As the worship of ( iod , bis highest emotion , has become the means of degrading him to the bigot , the tyrant , the slave , the villain , and the fool ; ho the love of beauty Iiuk made him loae the steps that he thought to be gaining . ( 7 b bt : continued . )

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    THE BACHELOR'S EVENING . I am , as you are perfectly aware , a Bachelor A fact for which I trust I am sufficientl y thank ' ful ! Nevertheless , without indulging in imbecile glorification of rny state , I am too haughty a philo sopher to shirk the truth when it presents itself " I scorn to deny that there are some trifling disad ' vantages connected with the lonely grand eur of my condition ; e . g . I very often don't know where to pass my evenings . The study ? Oh yes , the study ! What , after a whole day spent with the Fathers , or in prosecuting researches into the

    Coptic Drama , you propose that I should regale myself with books ! Now , if I had but a Partner of rny life ( and copyrights ) , there would be a quiet cozy fireside at which to gracefully unbend my mind , and unbutton my straps . If I did but know what Teriullian , with savage sagacity , calls " the very bitter pleasure of children— Liberorum omarissimA volnptate ! " ( those fathers had such discernment !) , what evenings would be filled with enlightening their young minds and setting them copies in round text ! If ! ah if !

    This isolated condition causes me to drift about the world like a weed" Torn from a rock on ocean's foam to sail Where ' er the waves or tempest ' s breath prevail . " Sometimes the waves wash me into a ball-room , sometimes into a theatre , and sometimes , as now , there seems no resting-place for the drifting weed —nothing but shoreless sea " Water , water , everywhere . " Parties have not begun ; theatres are closed . Where is the bachelor mind to recreate itself ?

    I thought of this the other night when wandering aimlessly about . I passed down Oxford-street ; the Princess ' s 'was closed ; I continued my way down the Haymarket—the Theatre Royal and the Opera stood under the dim stars silent , joyless , dreary ; I sauntered past the Lyceum—it also stared at me with a blank and stony front , and I swept past the gigantic portico of Old Drury , which looked like a ghostly theatre . Closed , all closed ; The sounds of mirth , the clapping of

    hands , the stamping of feet , the sobs of agony , the quiet trickling of tears—all silent . No crowd rushes over the benches to secure good seats and for half an hour sits before that green curtain in ejiEfer expectation ; no cracked voice announces " ¦ Oranges , apples , ginger beer , bill of the plaaay !" no juvenile visitors tremulously read over iind over again the bill of play , as if to divine something of the rare pleasure in store for them . Behind " the curtain struts no heavy , middle-aged , perfectly stupid fat her of a family , thrown into the " villain" line , because his voice is ravenlikc and

    his legs arc bandy ; no aspiring understrapper thinks himself kept in the background ; no solemn mediocrity relates his experiences in the greenroom . The passion , the rant , the strut , the stamp , the animal spirits , the mechanical fun , the " gag , the " business , " the genuine admiration of each other ( when not rivals ) , and hearty sympathy m each other ' s success , the intense belief they have in themselves , and the devotion of their whole lives to their art , —these , which make Behind tlie Curtain a study , are now lied A few mice course about the dark stage . Silence reigns . No vanitiesno heartburningsno successes , no 4 % & ¦ ¦ x- imnatl

    , , vaa « i * v- > ' ^ a x ^ % * ¦ * . K ^*»* ^ * * _* --- rill failures , no wig / s , " <> . spangles , no rouge ! l " dull , blank stare of the stony walls expresses tlie lifelessness within . The theatre has closed . « invites no crowd to night ly enjoyment . I ' . ist i doors the crowd hurries —though , in l « issiiij , » strange associations will arise . The door oi » theatre , oven when the season is over , h <> vv ^ awakens dormant , memories of happy < lay H ( . anticipated pleasures , of delights surpassing . » " cipation ! We grow old , fastidious , Itf'nti ; "'" ^ never pass without emotion the scene o

    former delig hts . , . So I mused as I wandered . It H"'" /^ "' ^ in me that . I bad neglected my beloved M ' . « " ' not recording ( he fact , that these lll (; al 1 ^ u . e ( . | O , ( ,, their doers for awhile . What a v Im » £ lost ! In taking a . survey o ! each season . 1 ^ pen might have filled several columns < f mig ht , one not have said of the manage n' , ( . Webster , Anderson , Kean and l \< - » ley , Jj . v ( . and Mat hews ! how natural an occasioi i & distributed to cadi an appiopnate roi »|» i ( , 1 (; critical laurel leaf , together will , a liint a » . p int .. re production of " works of an < ' !« vanfc . dency , " and similar councils winch man b

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    i 1022 8 Ef ) £ yLttiLtlt t * [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 25, 1851, page 1022, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1906/page/18/