Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

72 THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF POETRY. [ill.
working, — this is the special object of the poet, and of
the painter.
But consider what this beauty is. Of this that certainly
is true which Bishop Berkeley asserted of all outward
things — its ' esse ' is ' percipi.' Unless it is felt, perceived
by an intelligent soul, it does not exist. The forms,
the motions, the colours of Nature, taken alone, do
not constitute beauty. Not till these enter in and pass
through the medium of a feeling heart, can the beauty
be said to exist. You cannot find it "by any mere search
into the physical facts, however far back you press your
analysis of them. The height, the depth, the expanse,
the splendour, the gloom, — these do not in themselves
contain it, do not account for it, without the presence of
a soul to perceive and feel them, any more than the in-
strument accounts for the music, without the musician's
hand to touch it.
The feeling for the beauty, by which the visible world
is garmented, ranges through many gradations, from
a mere animal pleasure up to what may be called a
spiritual rapture.
The first and lowest is the mere exhilaration of the
animal spirits, stimulated by fresh air, fine weather, blue
sky, fine views of sea and land. This need not neces-
sarily be more than an animal enjoyment, an excite-
ment of the bodily nerves, unaccompanied by any fine
emotion, or any high thought.
The second stage is that enjoyment, which aesthetic