Genius in Sunshine and ShadowBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
General
Genius in Sunshine and Shadow
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Literature -- Anecdotes
We might cover pages in enumerating the resorts of notable people in
their instinctive search after necessary recreation from sterner duties.
Man must be doing something in order to be happy; action being quite as
necessary to the health of body and brain as thought. Schiller declared
that he found the greatest happiness of life to consist in the regular
discharge of some mechanical duty. "Cheerfulness," says the shrewd and
practical Dr. Horne, is "the daughter of employment; and I have known a
man come home from a funeral in high spirits, merely because he had the
management of it." It is in our unoccupied moments that discontent
creeps into the mind; busy people have no time to be very miserable.
Amusements are not without a double purpose, and it is only a mistaken
zeal which argues against those that are innocent. "Let the world," says
that wise old philosopher Robert Burton, "have their May-games, wakes,
whatsunales, their dancings and concerts; their puppet-shows, hobby
horses, tabors, bagpipes, balls, barley-breaks, and whatever sports and
recreations please them best, provided they be followed with
discretion."
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, a scholar as well as a statesman, found
delight in a variety of intellectual work. He shirked as well as he
could all invitations to parties, balls, and dinners, and once
despairingly exclaimed, when he was called from his studies to enter
into some form of amusement, "that life was tolerable were it not for
its pleasures."
CHAPTER V.
Leonardo da Vinci, the inspired painter of the "Last Supper" upon the
walls of the time-worn Milan convent,[89] is said to have had a strange
inclination for dirt. One biographer tells us he grovelled in it. Da
Vinci was a great engineer and scientist, as well as artist. The face of
Judas in the group seated at the table carries with it a legend. The
artist entertained a bitter enmity towards a priest of the Cathedral who
had worked him some vital injury, either real or imaginary. His revenge
was clear to him; his enemy's hated features were impressed upon his
mind, and so, a little modified to suit the supposed treacherous
character of the disciple, were made to constitute those of Judas at the
moment when he contemplates the betrayal of his Master. The likeness was
too plain not to be recognized by those who knew of the ill feeling
existing between the artist and priest. The result was that the latter
was virtually banished from the city, as he asked to be, and was
transferred to Rome.
Raphael thought he could paint best under the inspiration of wine, and
therefore used it freely. Some modern critics pretend to discover the
vinous influence in certain exaggerations of style peculiar to his best
pictures. Notwithstanding the number and grandeur of the works which he
left behind him, he died prematurely at the age of thirty-seven. A book
might easily be written upon the peculiarities and habits of artists;
but we continue our desultory gossip.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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