ANNUAL MEETING AT NEVADA. 245 



ESSAY. 



BY MISS JESSIE IIOLLOWAY, BUTLER, MO. 



The faculties of the mind are three in number, Intellect, Sensibility 

 and Will. The recognition of the beautiful elevates the mind and re- 

 fines the taste. This is an intellectual faculty. The taste must be culti- 

 vated and refined. This may be done by close observation and the 

 study of the beauties that surround us. The person uncultured and un- 

 used to the beautiful, can no more judge correctly in a matter of taste 

 than one unused to size and shape can form correct decisions on tJiese 

 subjects. 



Beauty is objective only ; we may admire an object for its particular 

 beauty; the object may be appropriated, but the beauty cannot. 



We behold the sun as it is sinking behind the golden clouds, reflect- 

 ing its streaks of soft yellow light on the blue canopy of heaven, we feel 

 awe-stricken, as we seem to stand in the presence of a supreme being. 

 Looking on the picture so beautifully painted before us, we exclaim: 

 How beautiful! How grand! The soul says it, the lips, perhaps, utter 

 it; if they do not, it is a mental affirmation. 



In our every-day life, when the business cares weigh heavily on our 

 mind, what a pleasure, what a relief to step out and inhale the fresh, 

 fragrant air and behold the beauties of nature. The little birds are 

 caroling their praises to their Creator from the graceful tree tops. The 

 flowers, that have been our tender care, seem to smile to us as they nes- 

 tle their modest heads among the green leaves. 



We view the landscape, with its level valleys, bordered with the 

 dark green foliage of the forest; the green sward, dotted with bright 

 wild flowers. We say, within ourselves, it is indeed beautiful. 



There are beauties all over this grand old world of ours, which the 

 ever searching, ever inquiring eye of mankind have not found. Deep 

 down in the bed of the rolling ocean are many beauties, no doubt, which 

 will never be found; and within the bosom of mother earth, are beauti- 



