By B. W.
There is grace in the leaves of the unfolding rose,In the calm of the floating swan,In the bend of a river that swiftly flows,And the bridge of a single span.There is grace in the sweep of a midnight sky,In the bounds of a wild gazelle,In the measures of music rolling by,And the tale which the poets tell.There is grace in the round of that baby’s arm;In the form that is bending to kiss;There is grace in all ways that quietly charmAnd that silently waken bliss.But the grace which most deeply enamors my heartIs the bearing of Jesus to me;—How quietly he with all riches could part,A man and a Savior to be.In him is more fulness of all I call grace,Than the eye or the heart e’er possessed.His knowledge is heaven, wherever the place;His beauty, my quietest rest.
There is grace in the leaves of the unfolding rose,In the calm of the floating swan,In the bend of a river that swiftly flows,And the bridge of a single span.There is grace in the sweep of a midnight sky,In the bounds of a wild gazelle,In the measures of music rolling by,And the tale which the poets tell.There is grace in the round of that baby’s arm;In the form that is bending to kiss;There is grace in all ways that quietly charmAnd that silently waken bliss.But the grace which most deeply enamors my heartIs the bearing of Jesus to me;—How quietly he with all riches could part,A man and a Savior to be.In him is more fulness of all I call grace,Than the eye or the heart e’er possessed.His knowledge is heaven, wherever the place;His beauty, my quietest rest.
There is grace in the leaves of the unfolding rose,In the calm of the floating swan,In the bend of a river that swiftly flows,And the bridge of a single span.
There is grace in the leaves of the unfolding rose,
In the calm of the floating swan,
In the bend of a river that swiftly flows,
And the bridge of a single span.
There is grace in the sweep of a midnight sky,In the bounds of a wild gazelle,In the measures of music rolling by,And the tale which the poets tell.
There is grace in the sweep of a midnight sky,
In the bounds of a wild gazelle,
In the measures of music rolling by,
And the tale which the poets tell.
There is grace in the round of that baby’s arm;In the form that is bending to kiss;There is grace in all ways that quietly charmAnd that silently waken bliss.
There is grace in the round of that baby’s arm;
In the form that is bending to kiss;
There is grace in all ways that quietly charm
And that silently waken bliss.
But the grace which most deeply enamors my heartIs the bearing of Jesus to me;—How quietly he with all riches could part,A man and a Savior to be.
But the grace which most deeply enamors my heart
Is the bearing of Jesus to me;
—How quietly he with all riches could part,
A man and a Savior to be.
In him is more fulness of all I call grace,Than the eye or the heart e’er possessed.His knowledge is heaven, wherever the place;His beauty, my quietest rest.
In him is more fulness of all I call grace,
Than the eye or the heart e’er possessed.
His knowledge is heaven, wherever the place;
His beauty, my quietest rest.
By JAMES KERR. M. A.
We will now consider what genius is, and, more particularly, whether it is an inborn or an acquired power.
On this much debated question there are, so to speak, two schools of thought, diametrically opposed to one another, and each pushing its views to an extreme, as if there were no middle way in which the truth may be found.
On the one hand, genius is held to be a kind of inspiration, which accomplishes its object without training or effort. No culture is needed; no special education whatever. Shakspere warbled “his native wood-notes wild” spontaneously. The songs of Burns are the outpourings of untaught genius; and no culture or education could have improved them in the slightest degree. They are like the song of the lark, free and spontaneous. But all this, we know, is an ideal dream. Shakspere, besides reading the volume of human nature which lay open before him, and which he made all his own, read many books, and took much pains with his writings. And as for Burns, he received a training of no ordinary kind. To say nothing of the volume of human nature spread out before him, from his youth upward, and which, like Shakspere, he read with penetrating glance, he perused with critical care the literary compositions of others, by which his mind was disciplined and his taste refined.
How far the greatest writers are from being perfect in themselves, and how much they are indebted to other aids, let one say who is entitled to speak with authority on such a subject. The great German writer Goethe thus speaks: “How little are we by ourselves, and how little can we call our own! We must all accept and learn from those that went before us, and from those that live with us. Even the greatest genius would make but little way if he were to create and construct everything out of his own mind. The world influences us at each step. The artist who merely walks through a room and casts a glance at the pictures, goes away a wiser man, and has learnt something from others. My works spring not from my own wisdom alone, but from hundreds of things and persons that gave the matter for them. There were fools and sages, long-headed men and narrow-minded men, children, and young and old men and women, that told me how they felt and what they thought. I had but to hold out my hands and reap a harvest which others had sown for me.... Many a time I am told that such and such an artist owes all to himself. Sometimes I put up with it; but sometimes, too, I tell them that he has little reason to be proud of his master.”
But though the slightest reflection suffices to show that there can be no inborn genius which accomplishes its ends in full perfection without education or training of any kind, there will still remain among most of us a vague belief to the contrary. It is more congenial to the popular taste to imagine that genius is an immediate gift from heaven, owing all to its divine source, than that it requires in any degree to be aided and supplemented by less sublime means.
On the other hand, many contend that genius is wholly an acquired power, using such arguments as the following: It is constantly found that the habit of taking pains ever accompanies what we call genius. In actual fact the two are ever found united. Where the one is present the other is present also. Where the one is absent the other also is absent. May not the one be the cause of the other? Then look at the effect of education in improving our intellectual powers. Look at the effect of education and constant practice in making the mind alert, and capable of doing well whatever it does often! Nor must it be forgotten that it is not one part only of man’s education that is to be considered, but every part. Everything that happens to us, everything that affects us, from the first dawn of our existence, is part of our education. When the Queen and Prince Albert were taking counsel together about the education of their children, a sagacious friend whom they consulted, to their surprise insisted strongly on this point, that a child’s education begins “the first day of his life.” Impressions are made on the infant mind going farther back than we can trace them. All these impressions, all the influences that surround us, from our first entrance into life, are a part of our education.
All this may be true; but there is perhaps some danger of our attributing too much importance to education. There are natural differences of intellectual power among men altogether apart from the education they receive. Some minds are strong by nature and in their very organization, while others are uncommonly weak.
Some are naturally so stupid and weak in the head that nothing can be made of them, let their education be continued ever so long. One day, when calling at the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh, I stood beside a man, who was depositing some money, whose intellect was of this low type. The teller asked him if he wished to lift the interest of the money lying to his credit for the past year. He just answered, “Let it lie.” Then the teller handed him a paper to sign. He said, “I canna do’t.” Feeling interested in the man, I advised him to go to a night school, at least to learn to sign his name. He replied, “I hae been at it four years, and I canna do’t.” Of course, of such a man nothing could be made. No amount of education could ever make him a genius, or even raise him above mediocrity in any branch of learning.
But if we take minds of a higher order, is it not possible that education acting upon them may be attended with happier results, and may ultimately produce that beautiful, that rich and rare type of mind which we call genius? Such was the opinion of Dr. Johnson. In his “Life of Cowley,” and with reference to the boyhood of the poet, Dr. Johnson says: “In the window of his mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s ‘Fairy Queen,’ in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined to some particular direction.”
Nor was this a mere passing thought with the great moralist; it was his confirmed belief. More than once we find the same idea repeated in his conversations. Thus, on one occasion, he is reported to have said: “No, sir, people are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be like saying that a man could see a great way east, but could not west. It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called by the generality of mankind a particular genius.”
If Dr. Johnson’s view is correct, we ought surely to meet with far more men of genius in the world than we do! There is no want of such as possess “large general powers,” and yet men of genius are rare. They are like angel’s visits, few and far between.
Dr. Johnson’s argument has been repeated in every variety of form. One says genius is untiring patience. Another says it is a great capacity for taking trouble. Another says it is simply hard work. But again we may ask, If genius is what such writers represent it to be, why are not men of genius more frequently met with?
Nor can it be said their lot forbids or that opportunitiesare wanting. What with the multiplication of books, and the general extension of education among all classes, knowledge now unrolls her “ample page” to every eye, and yet our embryo Miltons remain mute and inglorious, and the fairest flowers of genius, with rare exceptions, are still born to blush unseen, and waste their sweetness on the desert air.
Such being the case, may we not reasonably suppose that something more is needed for the production of genius than “large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction?”
In one sense, indeed, Dr. Johnson’s views may be not far from the truth. If by the word genius we mean transcendent genius, such as is found in our Shaksperes and Miltons, his definition can not be considered as otherwise than defective. But we do not always confine the word to this strict meaning. In a looser sense there are various types of genius. One star differeth from another in glory. If only a few occupy the higher places, and reach, so to speak, the topmost round of the ladder, a vastly greater number—a multitude which no man can number—may occupy lower places, and cluster on the lower rounds, sighing in vain to reach the highest. If Dr. Johnson had only in view this lower type of genius, his definition may be considered as fairly correct. To attain this station little more may be needed than “large general powers,” supplemented by persevering effort.
But in order to reach the highest rank of transcendent genius something more is needed, and that something we may callaptness of nature. Bacon, after giving some examples of extraordinary skill acquired in bodily exercises, says: “All which examples do demonstrate how variously, and to how high points and degrees, the body of man may be, as it were, moulded and wrought. And if any man conceive that it is some secret propriety of nature that hath been in these persons which have attained to those points, and that it is not open for every man to do the like, though he had been put to it; for which cause such things come but very rarely to pass; it is true, no doubt, that some persons are apter than others; but so as the more aptness causeth perfection, but the less aptness doth not disable.”
Bacon here hits the exact point. And what he says applies not to the physical powers only, but to the intellectual powers also. A greater degree of “aptness” is necessary to “perfection,” to the highest excellence in any study or pursuit, though less “aptness” may lead to eminence of a high though less perfect kind.
We speak of Napoleon’s military tact or aptness which he had from nature, and which he so greatly improved by practice. He combined aptness of nature with persevering study, and it was the two combined which for so many years chained victory to his chariot wheels.
In like manner the great writer has a literary tact or aptness, the gift of nature, and which he greatly improves by study and practice. The two qualities of aptness and persevering study go hand in hand, and the one is as indispensable as the other in order to reach the highest excellence.
This leads us to what appears to be the best definition of genius that can be given. Genius of the highest type may be defined to be “a special aptitude developed by special culture.” Special aptitude is the germ of genius, and is the gift of nature. Special culture is the means by which this natural gift is fully developed and so vastly improved.
May we not suppose that the poet Burns had this definition in his eye when he said: “I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the muse’s trade, is a gift bestowed by him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, labor, attention, and pains!”
ByRev. SHELDON JACKSON, D. D.
Arizona is a land of constant surprises. In its natural phenomena it is the paradise of the scientist, antiquarian, and tourist. Its deep cañons are the open book of geology; its vast prehistoric ruins alike stimulate and baffle the antiquarian, and its marvelous scenery, its flora, remnants of a strange people, and ancient architecture, will attract thousands of tourists.
The first portion of the United States to be settled by Europeans, it is the last developed of all our territories save Alaska.
Possessing the oldest civilization, it is just coming into contact with the new. Railway trains rattle and palace cars glide past prehistoric ruins.
With scarcely a place in history, it has been the theatre of many stirring events for three centuries: the battleground of races and civilizations.
It is preëminently the land of romance. It breaks upon the world and is connected with the waning of the great empire of the Montezumas.
In the early enthusiasm of American exploration it is linked with fabulous stores of silver. When questioned as to the source of all his great wealth, Montezuma was accustomed to point to the north. Rumors were rife of the northern cities of Civola (cities of the bull) and Chichiticala, with their fabulous wealth; of wonderful rivers, with their banks three or four leagues in the air; of races of highly “civilized Indians, and beautiful women, fair as alabaster.”
The very name “Arizona” (silver land) fired the avarice of the Spanish heart. The spark to set this enthusiasm on fire was supplied by the arrival in 1536 at Culican, in Sinaloa, of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, with three companions, all that were left of the ill-fated expedition of Narvaez and his three hundred followers.
During nine years of untold hardship and adventure, without compass or chart, through an unknown wilderness of woods, swamps, and arid plains, and hostile tribes, they crossed the continent from Florida to California, and made known a new region and people.
His description of the “seven cities of Civola,” excited alike the warrior and the priest. New conquests and fabulous wealth, and new fields for the Church started into existence expeditions of discovery and conquest. On the 7th of March, 1539, Padre Marcos de Nizza, a Franciscan monk, accompanied by Estevanico, a negro attendant, started in search of the “seven cities.” They passed through the land of the Papagoes and Pimas, traversed the valley of Santa Cruz, and finally came in sight of one of the pueblos (probably Zuñi). The negro having gone in advance with a party of Indians and been murdered, the monk did not enter the pueblo, but returned to Culican.
The viceroy, Mendoza, then projected two expeditions, one by sea, under Fernando de Alarcon, and the other by land, under Vasquez de Coronado. This latter expedition started in April, 1540, with a thousand men, mainly Indians. The expedition penetrated through Arizona to the Pueblo villages on the Rio Grande, and northward to the fortieth degree of latitude.
In 1582, Antonio de Espejo explored the valleys of Little Colorado, the Verde and Rio Grande, discovering valuable mines of silver.
On September 28, 1595, Juan de Ornate asked for permission and assistance in establishing a Spanish colony in the new country, which was granted, and many flourishing missions and settlements sprang up. In 1680 the pueblos of New Mexico, and the Apaches, of Arizona, arose in rebellion and drove the Spanish from the country.
In 1698 a Jesuit missionary, Eusebius Francis Kino, left his station at Dolores, and journeying northward, commenced missions among the Cocopahs and Yuma Indians. Previous to this the Jesuit fathers seem to have established the missions of St. Gertrude de Tubac, San Xavier del Bac, Joseph de Tumacacori, San Miguel Sonoita, Guavavi, Calabassus, Arivica, and Santa Ana. The cupidity and cruelty of the priests seemed so great, that in 1757 the Indians rebelled, destroying the missions and killing most of the priests.
In 1764 an unknown Jesuit priest (probably Jacobi Sedalman) visited the country, penetrating as far north as the Verde.
In 1769 the Marquis de Croix had fourteen priests sent out to replace those killed by the Indians.
On the 20th of April, 1773, two priests, Pedro Font and Francisco Garcia, left Central Mexico, and the following spring explored the Gila River from Florence to its mouth.
In 1776-7 two Franciscan priests, Sylvester Velez Escalente, and Francisco Atanaco Dominguez, traversed Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California. In 1776 there were eighteen missions in Arizona. At this time religious exploration seems to have largely ceased.
In 1773 the Spanish held the country south of Tucson, then called Tulquson. Unwilling to leave the rich silver mines, that brought such treasure to the Church, the priests and Spanish settlers gathered around them in their half religious and half military missions; again and again returned to the country, only to be again driven out by the Apaches, so that more than half the priests sent to Arizona were killed by the Indians. And yet the missions, through the fidelity of the Pima and Papagoes, held their own until the revolution for Mexican independence. From that time forward they languished, until suppressed by a decree of the Mexican government in 1827.
In 1824 Sylvester and James Pattie, father and son, from Bardstown, Kentucky, made up a party of one hundred adventurous frontiersmen to trap on the headwaters of the Arkansas. After many adventures in New Mexico the party broke up, and a few of them attempted to cross Arizona to the Pacific. Upon reaching San Diego they were imprisoned, and the father died in prison.
Pauline Weaver, of White County, Tennessee, penetrated Arizona as early as 1832.
As one of the results of the Mexican War, the portion of Arizona north of the Gila River was ceded to the United States February 2, 1848, and the southern portion acquired by the Gadsen purchase of December 30, 1853.
The discovery of gold in California in 1849 made Arizona a highway for the adventurous spirits that pressed across the continent to establish an empire on the Pacific coast. In 1855 the boundary survey was completed by Major Emory and Lieutenant Michler.
In August, 1857, a semi-monthly line of stages was put on between San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, California. This was followed in August, 1858, by the celebrated Butterfield Overland Express, making semi-weekly trips between St. Louis and San Francisco—time twenty-two days. This was run with great regularity until the rebellion in 1861.
By act of Congress in 1854 Arizona was attached to New Mexico, and a commissioner appointed to survey the boundary.
In 1854 Yuma was laid out under the name of Arizona City. In 1857 a few mining settlements began to spring up in the Mohave country. In 1859 a newspaper was published for a short time at Tubac. The country was nominally a portion of New Mexico, but Santa Fe was far away and the Apaches ruled the land.
In 1857 and again in 1860 efforts were made in Congress to secure the establishment of a separate territorial organization.
On the 27th of February, 1862, Captain Hunter with a band of one hundred guerrillas reached Tucson and took possession of Arizona for the Confederate government. The miners fled the country. The Apaches fell upon them, murdering many of them by the way. The Mexicans rushed across the border and stripped the mines of their machinery and improvements, and the country was deserted.
Spurred by the necessities of the case Congress organized the Territory of Arizona, February 24, 1863. From that time to 1874 the history of the Territory was one of fierce struggle with the Apaches, whose power was finally broken by General Crook, when scarcely a warrior capable of bearing arms was left living.
And yet the wild career of the fierce Apache was not an unmingled evil. He kept back the Spanish settlements and thus prevented the land from being covered with large Spanish grants, which are proving so injurious to the adjoining countries of New Mexico and California.
Since the settlement of the Apache the progress of the country has been steady and uninterrupted, and especially rapid since the advent of the Southern Pacific Railroad, in 1878-9. By the census of 1880 it has 40,400 population as against 9,658 in 1870, besides some of the semi-civilized tribes of Moquis, Pima, Papago and Maricopa Indians. These tribes have from the beginning been the friend of the white man, and in many critical periods the white man’s only protection from the incursions of the wild Apache.
During the earlier days of California emigration many a man lost and perishing on their plains was taken to their homes, nourished into strength and sent on his way rejoicing—for all of which they have never received any adequate return from the American people or government. Schools have lately been established among them by the Presbyterian Church.
The Indian population in the Territory numbers 20,800. In 1880 there were six banks and nineteen newspapers—six of which were dailies. The Roman Catholics had five churches and seven priests. The Mormons thirty-five churches, one hundred and seventy-eight high priests and five thousand members. The Presbyterians two churches and two ministers. Protestant Episcopal one church and one minister.
In 1882 the Protestant working force in the Territory consisted of half-a-dozen Methodist ministers, two or three Baptists, two Episcopalians and three Presbyterians.
In 1880 there were 3,089 school children, and the school expenditures amounted to $21,396. The production of gold and silver in 1880 was $4,500,000. In the same year there were 145,000 head of cattle and 1,326,000 head of sheep in the country.
Arizona has an area of 114,000 square miles—about as large as all New England and New York combined. The unbroken ranges of mountains that sweep down between California and Nevada and through Utah and Colorado, in Arizona are broken up into detached ranges. Among the more remarkable of these ranges are the Peloncillo, Pinaleno, Santa Catarina, Santa Rita, Dragoon, Chiricahuas, Mogollon, White, San Francisco, Peacock, Cervat, and Hualapais. They generally have a northwest and southeast course, with long narrow valleys between them.
The two great rivers are the Gila and Colorado, with their principal tributaries, the San Juan, Little Colorado, Bill Williams, Rio Verde, and Salt rivers. The Colorado has the most remarkable cañon formation in the known world. The valleys of the San Juan, Little Colorado, Salt, and Gila rivers are agricultural valleys, with millions of acres of great fertility, producing wheat, barley, oats, cotton, tobacco, lemons, oranges, grapes, figs, etc., of which overtwo hundred thousand acres are now under cultivation. Portions of the valleys of Santa Crux and Gila are cultivated by the Indians. Upon the Little Colorado are many settlements of Mormons.
In the western and southwestern sections are large areas of desert land, intensely warm in summer. The northern and eastern sections are at a higher altitude, and possess a delightful climate. The climate is remarkably healthy, and with the coming of railways will be greatly sought by invalids. The Southern Pacific Railroad crosses the southern section of the Territory from west to east, and the Atlantic and Pacific the northern portion from east to west, while a branch line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe connects the southern portion with the Gulf of California at Guymas.
The great industry of the country is silver mining, building up flourishing districts at Tombstone, Globe, Prescott, and other places. Gold, copper, and lead also abound.
By I. D’ISRAELI.
Nothing is so capable of disordering the intellects as an intense application to any one of these six things: the Quadrature of the Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology. In youth we may exercise our imagination on these curious topics, merely to convince us of their impossibility; but it shows a great defect in judgment to be occupied on them in an advanced age. “It is proper, however,” Fontenelle remarks, “to apply one’s self to these inquiries; because we find, as we proceed, many valuable discoveries of which we were before ignorant.” The same thought Cowley has applied, in an address to his mistress, thus:
“Although I think thou never wilt be found,Yet I’m resolved to search for thee:The search itself rewards the pains.So though the chymist his great secret miss,(For neither it in art or nature is)Yet things well worth his toil he gains;And does his charge and labor payWith good unsought experiments by the way.”
“Although I think thou never wilt be found,Yet I’m resolved to search for thee:The search itself rewards the pains.So though the chymist his great secret miss,(For neither it in art or nature is)Yet things well worth his toil he gains;And does his charge and labor payWith good unsought experiments by the way.”
“Although I think thou never wilt be found,Yet I’m resolved to search for thee:The search itself rewards the pains.So though the chymist his great secret miss,(For neither it in art or nature is)Yet things well worth his toil he gains;And does his charge and labor payWith good unsought experiments by the way.”
“Although I think thou never wilt be found,
Yet I’m resolved to search for thee:
The search itself rewards the pains.
So though the chymist his great secret miss,
(For neither it in art or nature is)
Yet things well worth his toil he gains;
And does his charge and labor pay
With good unsought experiments by the way.”
The same thought is in Donne. Perhaps Cowley did not suspect that he was an imitator. Fontenelle could not have read either; he struck out the thought by his own reflection. It is very just. Glauber searched long and deeply for the philosopher’s stone, which though he did not find, yet in his researches he discovered a very useful purging salt, which bears his name.
Maupertuis, in a little volume of his letters, observes on the “Philosophical Stone,” that we can not prove the impossibility of obtaining it, but we can easily see the folly of those who employ their time and money in seeking for it. This price is too great to counterbalance the little probability of succeeding in it. However it is still a bantling of modern chemistry, who has nodded very affectionately on it. Of the “Perpetual Motion,” he shows the impossibility, at least in the sense in which it is generally received. On the “Quadrature of the Circle,” he says he can not decide if this problem be resolvable or not; but he observes, that it is very useless to search for it any more; since we have arrived by approximation to such a point of accuracy, that on a large circle, such as the orbit which the earth describes round the sun, the geometrician will not mistake by the thickness of a hair. The quadrature of the circle is still, however, a favorite game of some visionaries, and several are still imagining that they have discovered the perpetual motion; the Italians nick-name themmatto perpetuo;and Bekker tells us of the fate of one Hartmann, of Leipsic, who was in such despair at having passed his life so vainly in studying the perpetual motion, that at length he hanged himself.
By RICHARD BUDD PAINTER.
I will give a short account of some forces which influence matter in a very powerful degree.
These areHeat,Light,Electricity,Magnetism,Chemical Affinity(or chemical change), andMotion.
Of these forces, as of those of attraction and repulsion, we again can only judge by their effects. God alone knows their cause and real quality.
Until a few years ago they were supposed to be quite different things essentially, but Grove, Joule, and others have now shown them to be so co-related as to be convertible the one into the other, and hence the brilliant theory of the “Correlation of the Physical Forces.”
To show this co-relation and capacity for transformation I will give a few examples. Rub a piece of iron briskly, or repeatedly strike it with a hammer, and it will become warm. We know from this, therefore, that motion will produce heat. Or strike a lucifer match against the box, and the rapid motion of the match against the hard surface will produce sufficient heat to cause the sensitive chemical substance at the end of the match to inflame, and so to give out heat and light. Or watch a horse trotting on a hard road at night, and sparks will every now and then fly from his feet.
This is because by the rapid forcible motion of his legs the iron of his shoes every now and then comes in contact with a stone, and a minute particle of steel being struck off with great force and rapidity it becomes red-hot, and thus presents another example of how motion can be converted into heat.
These are instances of heat and light being produced by the motion of friction. But now let us look at the converse case, of heat producing motion.
Light a piece of coal, and set a kettle of water on it. The flames resulting from chemical change soon leap out, and flicker, and flare, and presently the water too becomes agitated, and boils with energetic motion, and steam rushes up into the air.
Place water in a proper machine, and the force you get from the chemical change of the coal causing the water to form steam, can make a railway train weighing hundreds of tons rush along the rails at a mile a minute.
These are familiar examples of how man may set in action the correlative forces, but instances abound universally in all creation where the correlative forces are constantly producing each other by mutual conversion, and affecting thereby all sorts of natural changes.
By the stimulus of heat and light, etc., received from the sun, motion and chemical change are compelled throughout nature, both animate and inanimate. As an example of the latter take the case of water.
The water of the seas and lakes, etc., being affected by heat moves by evaporation into the air, and afterward descends as rain or dew to perform the well-known and indispensable uses pertaining thereto.
Then as to the way in which light and heat produce movement and chemical change in plants and animals, I will also cite one example, selecting plants as being the most ready of illustration.
It is under the stimulation of light and heat that the plant grows and performs its functions; and astonishing to say, the rays, both of light and heat, which fall on the plant are absorbed into it and fixed there.
That is to say, the chemical changes necessitated in the plant by the light and heat, result in these factors of change being themselves incorporated with the new wood, etc., in such a way as to be retained there in union with the atomsof carbon and other constituents of the tissue and products of the plant. Thus fixed they may remain for ages, until the wood, etc., is itself subjected to change, and then either as wood or as coal (if turned into such) it will—if burnt—again give out that light and heat which it received and appropriated during growth.
Hitherto I have spoken of chemical decomposition only as produced by motion, and heat, and light, but now I must give a familiar instance in which you can produce great chemical change and movement amongst atoms by simply mixing two chemicals together. Add tartaric acid to a solution of carbonate of soda and a great commotion ensues, owing to the superior affinity of the tartaric acid for the soda; and which acid displaces the carbonic acid in previous union with the soda, and the latter acid is turned out and escapes by violent effervescence.
This instance is but a typical example of chemical decomposition in general, and may occur in thousands of different ways in different chemicals, and producing not only chemical transformation, but the manifestation in many cases of heat, and light, and electricity, etc.
I will next speak of electricity and chemical affinity conjointly. The electrical spark will produce heat, light, chemical change, and movement.
Faraday showed also that electricity produces magnetism, and magnetism electricity—that indeed you can not produce the one without the other.
Again, electricity will set in motion chemical affinity or decomposition, and conversely chemical change will produce heat, light, electricity, motion, etc. To show this, place pieces of zinc and copper in an acid—that is, make a voltaic battery. The acid attracts the metal and sets up chemical action, and the result is that this chemical action by producing a change of state, sets free electricity, which being conducted by “the poles” or wires of the battery can there be made manifest in the following different ways:
Bring the poles together and heat, light, motion, etc., will be produced as witnessed in the dazzling electric light.
Or, to produce chemical change only, plunge the wires constituting “the poles” of the battery into water, and wonderful to say the molecules of water will have such motion imparted to them that they will be broken up into their constituent gases; and what is most marvelous, the oxygen will always be given off at one pole and the hydrogen at the other.
This is electrolysis or electro-chemical decomposition. Numbers of compounds in solution may have the molecular states of their atoms broken up thus, by the voltaic current, and curious to say of the atoms so dissevered, as above noted, those composing a given element will always be evolved by the same pole—the positive pole or the negative pole as the case may be. Some elements, that is to say, always appearing at the positive pole and others always at the negative.
Lastly I will say a few words specially as to motion.
We saw how the motion of striking the lucifer match produced chemical change, and light, and heat. We have seen also that chemical change—that is, the movement and change of place of the infinitely small atoms of matter—could be produced by heat, and light, and electricity; and that chemical change could also itself interchangeably produce all these.
We have seen, too, that motion can be produced by heat—as by the production of steam which drives the engine; also that light can cause motion, as in the growth and nutrition of plants; and it remains only in this brief summary of an immense subject, to remind the reader that electricity and magnetism can also both of them produce motion, not merely amongst atoms, but even in large masses, by means of their attractions and repulsions. Rub a piece of sealing-wax or glass with cloth or silk, and the friction will cause such a change of state in the glass or wax as to set free electricity, and this force, thus made evident by motion (rubbing), can itself produce motion by attracting pieces of paper, etc.; indeed, by using well-known methods you may lift hundreds of pounds’ weight.
So likewise as to magnetism; it can produce motion, as we see in the oscillation of the needle of the mariner’s compass—the attraction by a magnet of iron filings, etc.
From the above short survey of this marvelous subject, it can, I hope, be understood by the reader that in the co-related forces we have a most striking—nay! miraculous instance of “continuity”—that is to say, that the force, or essence, or energy, whatever it may be and whatever you may call it, that constitutes heat, light, etc., etc., is never lost, but merely changes from one form, or kind, or state, into another, in a perpetual series of everlasting transformations, each one form being capable of producing: or changing into one or more of the others—motion, for example, being readily transformed into heat, or heat into motion, etc.
My illustrations have necessarily been scanty, and my explanations brief, but I hope I have adduced sufficient to show the unscientific that in the six correlative powers we have a protean force which is able to assume the most astounding changes and varieties of form, according to some mechanical law we are totally unacquainted with.
But what is the real nature of this force or forces?
As to this I can say but little: it is one of the mysteries of creation. Experiment demonstrates that heat and light are kindred in their mechanical constitutions, and that they consist of vibrations of a “something” which is called ether, and it seems pretty certain that this “wave theory” is correct; but why they vibrate we do not know.
Then of the nature of magnetism and electricity we know even less, and can only say they are changes of the state of “something” which produces changes in the state of other things, both of matter and forces.
Some persons have thought that whereas light consists probably of the vibrations of “ether” in a particular manner, so, that electricity and magnetism may depend also on different kinds of strain or wave motion of this same “ether,”—either of that of space, or of the “ether” that permeates all substances. But, of course, this is all hypothesis.
So, too, of “chemical affinity,” we do not know exactly why it acts as it does, or what its force really consists in; we can only say that it depends on the different motions and appetencies or repulsions of the atoms of the various kinds of matter being made manifest, when such atoms are loosened from their previous condition by heat or what not, and so being rendered free, are able, through their inherent qualities and attractions, to arrange themselves afresh under the new conditions, in the order compelled by such endowed qualities and attractions.
We can only judge of motion, or force, or energy by witnessing its effects; and when we say that gunpowder or coal contain in them a store of potential energy, we only know that they do contain the capacity for producing movement and doing work. The gunpowder will, if inflamed, expand suddenly by the production of gases resulting from chemical changes induced by heat, and in such explosion will give liberty to enormous force.
And so likewise as to coal: on being subjected to chemical change by heat, it will, though in a less rapid way, give off its equivalent of force or energy; but as to what this acting force or energy really is, we know nothing more than that it is motion—and as to what potential force is, we know nothing more than that it is the capacity for movement in store.
If it is true, as Emerson affirmed, that “It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being,” that “they come to serve his natural wants, never to please his fancy,” then Berlin offers in her new National Gallery a fine illustration of this theory. In 1841 King Frederick William IV engaged the architect Stüler to draw a plan of a building, after the style of a Corinthian temple, which should inclose a fine room, serviceable as a lecture hall for the University, an exhibition hall for pictures, or a public audience room. They determined to locate this building just back of the Royal Museum, on the so called “Museum Island.” The king died before his plan was developed. In March, 1861, the Swedish consul, J. H. W. Wagener died in Berlin, leaving as a legacy to the state his collection of pictures, which was known in the city as the “Wagener Collection,” which occupied several rooms in the “Kunst Akademie.” In these same rooms every two years was held the exhibition for German artists, accompanied with the never ceasing regret that the accommodations were so poor. So necessity originated the idea of utilizing the “Corinthian Temple,” then about to be built, not for a “city hall,” according to the intention of Frederick William IV, but for an “art museum,” exclusively for German art. The thought of such a magnificent temple for their future works inspired all ambitious German artists, for it was understood that whenever anything superior was produced it should pass into the public possession, thus rendering the sale of great works possible, and establishing a connection between the artists and the State—a plan which was advocated years ago by Herman Grimm.
After it was decided to use this building for a gallery, Stüler occupied himself with the necessary architectural changes which he only completed a short time before his death. The corner stone was laid on the 2nd of December, 1867. The work advanced slowly, and was, of course, interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war. After the victories it was resumed, and grew as rapidly as all buildings did in that memorable year of 1871, when it was scarcely possible to secure a dwelling in the German capital.
It stands a grand monument to German taste and genius of the 19th century, and very appropriately contains on its proud front the simple inscription:
DER DEUTSCHEN KUNST, MDCCCLXXI.
It is said to be the finest modern gallery in Europe, and is one among the few buildings designed especially for a gallery, old palaces being utilized generally for this purpose. I doubt not, however (if European critics would believe it), that the Boston, New York and Philadelphia art museums or academies are in architectural design in many respects superior. The National Gallery in Berlin is built of the reddish Nebraer sandstone. The dimensions are 62 metres long by 31 wide. From the ground plan can be seen the extent of the flight of stairs outside, which lead to a portico. This portico is supported in the pseudo-peripteral Corinthian style. The columns extend around the entire second story of the building. Between each two is engraved the name of an architect or artist. There are four fine groups of statuary on this stairway. A door opens from the portico into the second floor of the building, which is not in keeping with the generous dimensions of the columns and stairs. The entrance adds 34 metres in length to the building.
The walls of the entrance hall or vestibule in the first floor are overlaid with red Pyrenean marble; the ceiling is metal made in the Cassetin pattern, so much used in the Dresden gallery, and is supported by four Ionic columns. On the left broad white marble stairs lead to the second floor. To the right is a large open space for statuary. The first hall runs obliquely, and rests upon twelve black Belgian marble pillars, with capital and base of gilded zinc. The walls are of a sombre yellow stucco, reflective as marble. Upon the arched ceiling is frescoed in grey the story of the “Niebelungen Lied,” which is exceedingly pretty, surrounded as it is by brilliant borders. Between the columns the wall rises in the form of arches, and in these arches the story of Siegfried is painted.
Leading from this first hall to the left is a room for statuary (II), two rooms beyond for pictures (III and IV), to the right four rooms (XIV, XIII, XII, XI,) for paintings. These again unite in an oblique hall for statuary which expands into five fan-like rooms for paintings. Ascending the stairs slowly, we can study a plaster frieze, extending around the wall from the first to the second story, representing the “Progress of Civilization in Germany.” All her great men are here, from St. Boniface and Charles the Great to Frederick William IV, and the distinguished men of his times, kings, princes, poets, scientists, philosophers,literateurs, philanthropists, historians, musicians, artists, architects, sculptors, all are here gracefully and ingeniously brought out with their own accessories, consciously or unconsciously working with their separate aims into one another’s hands. It is a succession of men one can well pause to study. Otho I, Ulrich von Hütten, Melancthon, Luther, Cranach, Holbein, Dürer, the great elector, Libnitz, Winkelmann, Mengs, Klopstock, Bach, Glück, Frederick the Great, Kant, Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Blücher, Stein, Schleiermacher, Hegel, the brothers Grimm, Humboldt, Weber, Schinkel, Tieck, Rauch, Overbeck, Kaulbach, Stüber, Cornelius, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Rietichel Kiss, Hildebrandt—are only selected from the long list. Among all are the names of but two women! Sophia Charlotte, and Queen Louise, who make prominent the two monarchs standing by their sides. Is it not almost dazzling to see this nation growing by “its own genius into a civilization of its own?”
We must not forget, however, in the distraction of thought caused by the encounter of the representative men of eleven centuries that we are ascending the stairs of a modern gallery in search of the works of a single man, who stood at the head of his own department, and revived art in Germany in a century when the equipoise between it and other interests had been lost.
There has been much dissatisfaction expressed by critical people that the two handsomest rooms in the National Gallery have been devoted to the shadowy old cartoons of Cornelius. But we intend to enter these rooms, not with the complaints of many fresh in our memory, but in the spirit of Hermann Grimm—he who says of himself that he “regards art as the noblest fruit of human activity,” and who writes in his “Life of Michael Angelo:” “Since Michael Angelo’s death, no one has presented such vast problems to art as Cornelius, whose noble conceptions have been more powerfully and grandly embodied with increasing years. He is a painter in the highest sense. Like Michael Angelo and Raphael, he touches the intellectual life of the people on all points, and endeavors to represent that which most deeply affects their minds. Yet in spite of all, how do his efforts, and all that has resulted from them, tell upon the people? and what has been the end of the mighty power waited for through centuries? With deep shame I write the fate awarded to this man in Prussia. He is not, indeed, allowed to suffer want; an honorable, brilliant old age has fallen to his lot. But, while for that which is called official art, the greatest sums are fixed and given, not only are there none finished of the paintings ordered of Cornelius—the cartoons of which, whenever they appear, eclipse everything else, unsightly as is their gray paper and charcoal strokes—butso much can not even be obtained in Berlin as a couple of simple walls for the cartoons of the paintings executed by him in Munich, which are kept shut up there, or go traveling around the world, appearing in Belgium, Austria and England, acquiring in these places the notoriety to which he owes his late fame. Engravings are taken from them. As photographs, they are in every hand; and in this way their influence will endure, until, perhaps, some day a museum worthy of them may be achieved, where they may find their true place, not as the ornament of a Camposants, but as the memorials of a great man.”
The day has arrived! The words of Hermann Grimm for his friend have not been lost, but like Ruskin’s praise of Turner, have fallen into good ground. Before reaching the Cornelius Halls, the Cupola room, which is the most gorgeous in ornamental work, must be entered. At the top of nine pillars are the sitting figures of the nine muses in light polychromatic tints—so exquisitely delicate the shells of the sea seem to have furnished the colors. Between these figures the roof forms into shells, above which and encircling the dome, are painted the signs of the zodiac in brilliant colors upon a gold background. This “Cupola Saal” has four doors, one from the vestibule, the other opening into the Cornelius Halls, and the other two on either side leading into the long picture halls. I have said doors—but fortunately there are no doors in this tasteful building; costly tapestry, caught back in bewitching folds alone indicate the entrance from one room to another. The portraits of the emperor and empress are the only pictures in the Cupola Hall. Unfortunately they are not from Angelo’s brush. The artist Plockhorst is comparatively unknown, and these portraits are very conventional in style.
The frescoes on the ceiling in the Cornelius Halls were done under the direction of Professor E. Bendemann, by Ernst, Fritz, Röber and William Beckmann. The Germans call it wax color, after the receipt of Prof. Andreas Müller, of Düsseldorf. The subjects are only the long catalogue of beautiful abstractions as Prophecy, Science, Genius, etc., but the color and execution show the high degree of perfection of modern frescoes. In the second hall is depicted the myths of Prometheus in this same wax color. The drawing of Prometheus’ figure taken from one of Cornelius’ cartoons, in Munich, is especially fine—so full of strength and fortitude. He looks a splendid type of vicarious suffering and strength of will, resisting oppression, almost ready to exclaim in Lowell’s lines: