disrespect to the valuable class of servants, to which I allude, for I am convinced they know not what they do, I must express my fears, that they are often busily at work upon the young mind, long before the age of womanhood, instilling into it their own low views of beauty as a personal distinction; and it is against this influence, more especially as it begins the earliest, that I would call up all the power of moral and intellectual expansion, in order to fill the mind as early as possible with elevated thoughts of the creation in general, and of admiration for that part of it which is separate from self.
A being thus enlightened, will perceive that admiration is one of the higher faculties of our nature unknown to the brute creation, and one, the lawful exercise of which, affords us perhaps more enjoyment than any other. Upon the right employment of this faculty depends much of the moral tendency of human character. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that we should learn in early life to admire only what is truly excellent; and as there is an excellence of beauty, which it is consonant with the higher attributes of our nature that we should admire, it necessarily follows, that to search for beauty as an essence pervading the universe, is an employment not unworthy of an intelligent and immortal being.
Let us then examine, so far as we are able to do so, "the treasures of earth, ocean, and air;" and we shall see that it has pleased the all-wise Creator, to diffuse the principle of beauty over every region of the world. The deep sea, into whose mysterious caves no human eye can penetrate is full of it. The blue ether, and the sailing clouds, sun, moon, and stars, are they not beautiful? and the fruitful garden of the earth, wherever nature smiles?
"How beautiful is all this visible world!" |
