Suggestions on Former Reading-Course Bulletins. 417 



. " One impulse from a vernal wood 

 May teach you more of man, 

 Of moral evil and of good, 

 Than all the sages can." — IVordszuorth. 



" My love for nature is as old as I." — Tennyson. 



" Come forth into the light of things, 

 Let nature be your teacher." — Wordsworth. 



What does Psyche* see in the pool ? GHnting sunbeams among the 

 ripples perhaps. This can hardly be, else her expression would be glad- 

 some, not grave. Minnows darting here and there in the water? Hardly, 

 else gravity would give place to bright and eager expectancy. 



Psyche is looking at herself as reflected in the water. The soul is 

 face to face with itself. But why so grave and earnest? Should not 

 beauty reflected in the brook give rise to joy in the beholder? We feel 

 the thrill of artistic pleasure in contemplating the picture as a whole. 

 Why should not Psyche have the same emotion as she gazes at her image 

 in the water ? The difference seems to be this : We see the beautiful 

 work of art and rejoice in it ; Psyche sees her whole self — its truthfulness, 

 but also its defects ; its goodness, but also its shortcomings ; its knowledge 

 and insight, but also its ignorance and prejudice; its beauty, but also its 

 unlovely traits. We do not therefore look to see shining in her face the 

 soul's rejoicing at a thing of beauty, much less the vanity of the coquette 

 or the half unconscious self-appreciation of the child, but rather the 

 seriousness of a being who contemplates herself as she really is. 



But why do we find the picture beautiful? Is it not because we 

 too see in it at least a partial reflection of ourselves, our ideals, our 

 feelings of worthiness and unworthiness, the spirituality of our souls 

 which yet have interests clinging to the nature about them? Why has 

 Psyche such butterfly wings, except that the soul is so little bound by 

 the laws of gravity, that a symbol of flying is adequate to a flight. Why 

 do we find so fitting the purity of the water, the charm of the flowers, 

 the serenity of the foliage, unless it be that only in such surroundings 

 would the soul really be at home ? 



Some have said that beauty or ugliness belong to objects as such, and 

 that we merely perceive the one or the other as the case may be ; others 

 have said that beauty originates in our minds, and that we throw it like 

 a veil over whatever we will. But neither of these theories fully accounts 

 for the beauty we see in the picture of Psyche at the pool. Plato declared 

 that the ideal exists. Aristotle says, " Yes, that is true, but it exists in 

 the object itself." We need to go one step farther, and say, " Yes, the 



* Pronounced Sy'-kie. 

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