Beauty in small things [no. 2]
Beauty in small things [no. 2]
To thine own self be true & a Farewell waltz
Does nature seek to exceed her powers? Everything in nature is exactly measured, without vain effort and without false estimates. Every creature acts according to its quantity and quality, its nature and its power, and then is at peace. Man alone lives in pretentiousness and dissatisfaction.
What wisdom and what virtue there is in judging oneself truly and in remaining oneself! You have a part that only you can play; and your business is to play it to perfection, instead of trying to force fortune. Our lives are not interchangeable.
-Sertillanges, “The Intellectual Life”
Frédéric Chopin had a tenuous engagement with Maria Wodzińska, a Polish beauty, when suddenly he received a letter from her, ending the relationship. Perhaps her father insisted in the break-up; the details are uncertain. Chopin was deeply depressed by the news and wrote this poignant waltz (called “The Farewell Waltz”) for her in the aftermath.
My husband is a composer, and after I read the story of how Chopin wrote this waltz, I asked my children, wouldn’t it be so romantic if their father wrote a song like this for me? Although perhaps I should be grateful for our less-dramatic relationship. I find it fascinating that some of the most beautiful art (music, poetry) comes in the midst of deep sorrow.
I noticed recently while looking at the six paintings by Millet on our dining room wall (we’re still studying Millet this term) that the faces in five of the six paintings are nearly obscured by a head covering or shadow. I wonder if he was trying to say that each of these peasants could be any one of us—painting them as a sort of Everyman by failing to paint a clear, unique individual face for each one.
Millet defended the humble, mundane work of the peasants he painted, and said that it “conveys the true dignity, the real poetry of the human race.” Do you agree? Do you feel that farming & gardening, cooking and tending a home is the work that conveys true dignity?
Ah, the beauty of nature! This glorious cosmos recently bloomed for the first time in my garden, and what a happy surprise it was. I planted these in late August, very uncertain how they would grow in those early weeks of triple-digit temperatures, and now they are bursting open, new blooms unfolding every morning. I’ve only been growing flowers for six months, but I can see how it could become one’s entire life work.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin.
Matthew 6:28
Where are you finding beauty in small things in your life right now?