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Like poetry, it improves the world only by imagining it improved, but not content with making this addition to the mind's furniture an addition which might be useful and ennobling it thinks to confer a more radical benefit by persuading mankind that, in spite of appearances, the world is really such as that rather arbitrary idealisation has painted it.
The influence of an action, be it never so noble, can last but a short time; but a work of genius is a living influence, beneficial and ennobling throughout the ages.
Evelyn was only five years old; his joyous heart was incapable of sorrow, and he enlivened our house with the innocent mirth incident to his years. The aged Countess of Windsor had fallen from her dream of power, rank and grandeur; she had been suddenly seized with the conviction, that love was the only good of life, virtue the only ennobling distinction and enriching wealth.
But his father having incurred the jealousy of Gratian and been unjustly executed, he was allowed to retire to his patrimonial estates near Valladolid, where he gave himself up to rural enjoyments and ennobling studies. He was not long permitted to remain in this retirement; for the public dangers demanded the service of the ablest general in the Empire, and there was no one so illustrious as he.
He saw clearly, that he had hitherto held himself amenable only to the judgment of the world. Its standard of propriety, taste, honor, had been his. He had not looked higher. His friend Mr. Norton, on the contrary, held himself accountable to God's tribunal. His whole conversation, conduct, and spirit, showed the ennobling effect which that sublime test of character had upon him.
He had no illusions concerning it; if he had ever thought of journalism as a grand and ennobling profession, these ideas had perished, in his experience in a village printing-office. He came to his work in Equity with practical and immediate purposes which pleased the committee better.
It is very well for one who cares nothing for genteel society, and whose bearish manners, in fact, unfit him for it, to lead such a life; but is she to endure this for ever, and see her daughters married to men who wear long beards and Blucher boots? These incessant attacks at length overthrow the ennobling philosophy of the colonist.
That soul is visible only to the observer who can look through the art into the interior spirit of the artist, and thus can estimate a piece of acting according to its inspirational drift and the enthralling and ennobling personality out of which it springs.
Having once acquired the habit of enjoying the selfish excitement, the simple, safe, and ennobling employments of self-cultivation, of improving others, are laid aside for ever, because the power of enjoying them is lost. Do not be offended if I say that this is the fate I fear for you.
But my convictions are so pronounced that I cannot forbear the reiteration. For while it is ennobling to the individual, giving independence of character and more financial ability, the reflex influence is so helpful in giving the race a higher status in the industrial activities of a commonwealth.
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