--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Paul, J. H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 11 published: 1918-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Paul, J. H., "The Spirit of Song," *Improvement Era* 21, no. 11 (September 1918): 939–946.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera21011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera21011unse start_page: 939 end_page: 946 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera21011unse publication_year: 1918 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Spirit of Song The Spirit of Song By J. H. Paul, Professor of Natural Science, University of Utah There are people who maintain that the spirit of song, which is natural to youth, can be rekindled and kept burning in later life. Others ask, "Is it worth while, after all, to keep alive the spirit of song? Such lightness of heart, it is argued, may be natural to youth only. Why should the busy man still sing? or the despondent one dream? or the aged still feel young? Let the poets, artists, novelists, dramatists, persist in dreaming and in singing if they must; but in this work-a-day world most people have other business." These questions, these doubts, these skeptical arguments, I shall endeavor to answer. Lest the Song Die Out The admonition which an unknown poet has voiced to the American people is applicable to the argument presented in this article "When the song's gone out of your life, Which you thought might last to the end; The first sweet song of the heart, Which no other days can lend; The song of the bird to the trees, The song of the wind to the flowers, The song which the heart sings low to itself When it wakes in life's morning hours: You can start no other song not even a tremulous note ; Will falter forth on the empty air; It dies in your aching throat; It is all in vain that you try, When the spirit of song has fled; As the nightingale sings no more to the rose When the beautiful flower is dead." For parents and teachers the questions are: Shall the chil- dren be permitted to know for themselves something of that — — 940 IMPROVEMENT ERA which inspired the poets —something of the reality, the truth, the beauty of nature? If you will consult the writings of Maeterlinck, Audubon, Emerson, Kirkham, Gilbert White, Bur- roughs, Thoreau, Thomson — to mention only a few of the — greater nature writers or some of the modern psychologists, you shall find a convincing answer. They demonstrate that, for true educational purposes, the book of nature excels all other books, and that working with nature is the best kind of manual and vocational training for the child, as well as for all others. What Youth Should Know It is not, however, the number of facts, but the emotions aroused by their meaning, wonder, and use that are worth most. "A mist on the far horizon, The infinite, tender sky, The ripe, rich tint of the corn fields, And the wild geese sailing high; And all over upland and lowland The charm of the golden-rod, Some of us call it autumn; Others call it God." Caruth. Young people should learn not alone to know, but also to love, the things of nature ; and of the two, the second is the more important. For lack of knowledge may be remedied when the attitude is right ; but there is no method known of replacing the spirit of song that goes out of life, if ever we lose delight in the things "that thrilled our hearts in youth." The child's early love of "the orchard, the meadow, the deep, tangled wildwood," the fascination of viewing the lights in the bright and brooding sky, the wonder attaching to the life of the fair and bounteous — earth can these interests be restored if once they have been destroyed? We cannot say. Therefore, let us beware of per- mitting the spirit of song to depart from younger lives, even if no song remains in our own. "The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; But the light of the great earth dies With the dying sun. "The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; And the light of a whole life dies When love is done." Genius and the Commonplace The common mind can affirm with force only by means of oaths or by asseverations linked with that which is high or mighty. Genius uses choice words and no oaths; its illustra- — —— THE SPIRIT OF SONG 941 tions and means of emphasis are drawn from objects that are near at hand. The mature poet is as much impressed by the voice and industry of the bee as by the music of the spheres and the splendors of the starry heavens: , "And when abroad in summer morn, I hear the blithe, bold bee, Winding aloft his tiny horn An errant knight is he! That winged hunter of rare sweets O'er many a far countree, To me a tale of love repeats; It's subject —thee! Motherwell. The true artist does not need to travel abroad or to spacious estates in order to find beauty; for it lies nearby, at the door of A Cottage Home High in the Hills the humblest cottage. The real painter does not greatly prefer the scenic wonders of the Yellowstone, the majesty of the Colo- rado, the weird mysteries of painted deserts, or sculptured pin- nacles of the mighty West, to the little river that flows through his native village. Even Delacroix, whose pictures suggest that he had an inborn love for striking and spectacular kinds of beauty, wrote from a shabby suburb of Paris that "the poorest 942 IMPROVEMENT ERA with its straight, leafless saplings, in a dull and flat little alley, horizon, can say as much to the imagination as the most be- praised of sites. This tiny cotyledon piercing the earth, this violet shedding its first whiff of perfume, I love as much as the pines of Italy." Where Beauty Abides So, whenever we stand fascinated before a Corot landscape, the scene looks familiar, as if we had viewed it before. It was always the tender grace that hovered about his own home that he painted with most fidelity and perfection and he declares — ; that he prefers the humblest parts "my leaves and my little birds." What shall we say of persons who run about, summer after summer, in search of new landscapes to admire? Do they love nature? If they did, they would not travel so much. They — are merely one-sided intoxicated with "conspicuous natural effects, which they call scenery." No one can disprove Emer- son's declaration that "though we travel the world over to find beauty, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. The dif- ference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is great difference in beholders." This American never had to leave his own half-acre in order to find beauty that thrills and satisfies the soul: "Let me go where'er I will, I hear a sky-born music still; It is not only in the rose, It is not only in the bird; Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard; But in the meanest, darkest things, There's always, always, something sings." The Real Admirer "If a thing really appeals to us," writes Mrs. VanRensselaer, "the better we know it, the more we care about it. The lover of nature has his favorite corners of the world, as he has his friends; and does not constantly exchange them for others, or perpetually contrast their attractions with those of others. If every one admires them, his joy in them is increased; but if he is almost alone in his appreciation, this fact is the source of special pleasure and pride. When he drives through a beautiful new country, his eyes are perpetually charmed; but when he drives through the roads around his home, his heart is touched and his imagination stirred by the beauty of past years as well as by the beauty of today, and by the hope that next year's beauty will also bring. Each tree is a friend, each bush has a special message for his ear, each flower is the child of flowers he THE SPIRIT OF SONG 943 knew last summer." The habit of gadding abroad in order to see the tallest tree, or climb the highest mountain, or travel on the fastest train, or meet the strongest man, or shake hands with — the most noted Chinaman, Hindoo, or Persian what is all this madness on the part of certain of our countrymen except an open advertisement to the world that these travelers lack true culture and appreciation? The Mark of Wisdom Well does Solomon say that "Wisdom is before the face of him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the :M'M i ,- ... -" ,V^'"^ A Sparkling Stream in the Wasatch Mountains ends of the earth." The soul serene is no wanderer. It dwells in beauty, and does not need to go abroad to find its arcadian bowers, for they are near at hand, even at our own doors. Why is the average man so restless? Goethe asks, "Why so bustle — - 944 IMPROVEMENT ERA the people, and cry?" If we must have grand scenery, is there anything to surpass our own mountain heights and canyon dells, our crystal lakes and mysterious Dead Sea? Are not Western wild flowers as beautiful as those of Persia and the East? Do not the hermit thrush, the canyon wren, the water ouzel, the solitaire, the meadowlark, the kinglet, sing as gloriously here "at the first sweet dawn of day" as do the nightingale and the sky- lark in distant lands? Or is it that other people are better than our own? "Where are the men like Western men? So strong, so true, they be! And where are maids like Western maids? — So fair, so pure, so free!" Why should it be necessary for commercial clubs to adopt the slogan, "See America first?" Simply because our false and superficial modes of education have not opened to our eyes, our hearts,; our ears, our souls, the beauty and wonder, the music and melody, the drama, the comedy, the tragedy, of the world- life everywhere about us, hidden, as it Were, in "other worlds than ours." It is chiefly the study of nature that confers this inestimable power of finding beauty in the commonplace, inter- est at our own doors, fascinating lessons in the meanest flower that blows, and instruction from the most obscure insect of the field. Inspiration of the Poets Can there be any doubt as to the sources of the inspiration of the finemind whose first production, "Thanatopsisj" opens with: "To him who. in the love of nature, holds, communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language." So Bryant began his career as a poet. Mrs. Southey thus explains the basis of poetry: "For well I know this fond heart finds A music in the running rills, A voice upon the Western winds, A shadow on the misty hills, Which, if it were some colder thing, Streams, woods, and mountains would not bring. "Yet not for worlds would I resign This weak, fond poet-heart of mine; It maketh me creation's heir To all that's beautiful and fair; It binds me with a secret tie To the sweet lilies of the field; Itlinks me to the star-lit sky; Itspeaks to wild birds passing by; And lets me look upon the book Of life's great mysteries unsealed." THE SPIRIT OF SONG 945 Mind in Nature Some such feelings are probably experienced by all per- sons. The emotions due to, or arising from, the mere percep- tion of the beauty, the wonder, and the power of nature are not confined to impressionable and artistic minds. The latter classes, however, are more susceptible to, and more often moved to expression by, the mysterious spirit that permeates air, earth, and sea. Those of duller imagination and lower mentality may miss these delights. Much of the painting, the poetry, and the music of civilization is but an expression of the broad and more obvious results of the action of nature upon persons of artistic or emotional temperament. A sort of natural religion, which seeks to deify the powers or chief objects of nature, arises in the minds of men in the absence of other religious training, while it also accompanies and seems inseparable from the highest forms of religious belief. Such is the effect of nature's action upon what we may term — the average man the person not specially or highly trained in any branch of nature knowledge. When, however, one studies the laws of nature in any well established science, the hold of the natural upon the mind is much more accentuated. To the scientifically trained, the "something" that sings in nature is not limited to living things. The physical world, as well as the realm of life, is found to be permeated with thought. Science is mainly an interpretation of the thought expressed by things. Nature, as far as we can judge, is without ears, eyes, senses, feel- ings, intellect; yet it is permeated with a thought, feeling, and music, that appeal mightily to some minds. Nature is intel- ligible, that is, it can be understood; and this is simply to say that it is a system of thought, of mind, of meaning. It is per- meated with reason, and has its aims and ideals. These are embodied in its forms, in its very materials, in the elements which compose these materials, and more especially in its orderly — processes its fixed, exact, and unvarying laws. Nature a Revelation Is it likely that the meaning which we find in nature was put there or came there for the entertainment and instruction of natvire itself? Certainly not, since we know of only one class of beings that can understand reasons, aims, order, ideals, and laws, such as we discover in natural phenomena. It is only man- kind, the spiritual or thinking species, that understands. Man, who is, in intellect and spirit, above nature, is in this respect supernatural. Though man is thus above the strictly natural — realm, he yet finds in it something akin to himself something that is the result of thought, purpose, and aim. Man discovers — 946 IMPROVEMENT ERA in nature certain results that suggest the operations of a spirit or intelligence or personality (whichever you will). Some power seems to be directing the course of nature to certain definite ends, as if for the realization of the ideals which stand out as part of the product of the operations of natural forces. All investigators discover something that suggests mind and will at work with nature, but they differ in the names they give to the force or the thing that they find working so intelligently. "Some of us call it autumn, others call it God." The fact that we discover mind in nature is probably the main or basic reason for the delight which every one experiences in any sustained investigation of the laws and operations of nature. What we find is something akin to our own reason and power, yet superior; it works much more perfectly and is appar- ently unlimited (infinite) in the sphere of its operations and in the amount and duration of its power. The mind and power indicated by nature are, in fact, so much greater than our own that simply to discover and to comprehend the laws or modes of operation of this power is the greatest glory of the human intellect. To refrain from the study of nature would therefore be to neglect to consider the revelation of the Supreme Wisdom which it manifestly contains, and which it is always forcing upon our attention.