Beulah - Page 298/348

"You can at least console yourself, Graham, by determining that "'You know what's what, and that's as high

As metaphysic wit can fly.'"

I imagine there are very few of us who would agree with some of our

philosophers, that 'the pursuit of truth is far more important than

the attainment thereof'--that philosophizing is more valuable than

philosophy. To be conversant with the abstractions which, in the

hands of some metaphysical giants, have rendered both mind and

matter like abstractions, is a course of proceeding I should

scarcely indorse; and the best antidote I remember just now to any

such web-spinning proclivities is a persual of the three first

lectures of Sidney Smith on 'Moral Philosophy.' In recapitulating

the tenets of the schools, he says: 'The speculations of many of the

ancients on the human understanding are so confused, and so purely

hypothetical, that their greatest admirers are not agreed upon their

meaning; and whenever we can procure a plain statement of their

doctrines, all other modes of refuting them appear to be wholly

superfluous.' Miss Beulah, I especially commend you to these

humorous lectures." He bowed to her with easy grace.

"I have them, sir--have read them with great pleasure," said Beulah,

smiling at his droll manner of mingled reserve and freedom.

"What an exalted estimate that same incorrigible Sidney must have

placed upon the public taste of this republican land of ours? In one

of his lectures on 'the beauty of form,' I remember he says: 'A chin

ending in a very sharp angle would be a perfect deformity. A man

whose chin terminated in a point would be under the immediate

necessity of retiring to America--he would be such a perfect

horror!' Decidedly flattering to our national type of beauty." As

Eugene spoke, his lips wore a smile more akin to those of his

boyhood than any Beulah had seen since his return from Europe.

"Yes; that was to show the influence of custom, be it remembered;

and, in the same connection, he remarks, honestly enough, that he

'hardly knows what a Grecian face is; but thinks it very probable

that if the elegant arts had been transmitted to us from the

Chinese, instead of the Greeks, that singular piece of deformity--a

Chinese nose--would have been held in high estimation.' It was

merely association."

"Which I don't believe a word of!" cried Beulah, appropriating the

last as a lunge at her favorite absolutism. Rising, she placed her

drawings in the portfolio, for the sun had crept round the corner of

the gallery and was shining in her face.