Creating Beauty

Men learn of God through Beauty. We Builders who hold beauty in our fingers have the key. We could create it only if we loved it enough. Eloise Lownsbery, Boy Knight of Reims

Stained-Glass Beauty

Seen from the outside, the stained-glass windows in a church look dull and dark; but when you enter the church and can see the same windows illumined by the rays of the sun, you discover their incredible beauty. The light of the sun can transform stained-glass windows into magnificent works of art. Likewise, you can……

The Able Housekeeper

The house had been clean under my care; under Betsie’s it glowed. She saw beauty in wood, in pattern, in color, and helped us to see it, too. The soup kettle and the coffee pot on the back of the stove, which I never seemed to find time for, were simmering again the first week……

The Beauty of a Song

The other day as I was taking my pleasure along a river called “The River of Gold,” from which one can faintly see the enormous mountains which shut off Spain from Europe, as I walked, I say, along the Mail, or ordered and planted quay of the town, I heard, a long way off, a……

Night

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven: In full-orb’d glory yonder Moon divine Rolls through the dark-blue depths. Beneath her steady ray The desert-circle spreads, Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. How……

Cottage of the Woodcarver

Just outside the village stood the cottage of a woodcarver. The woodcarver and his wife took me in, and I became their foster child. I learned to carve. A poet in wood-carving was my foster father. How proud everyone was of his work! How carefully he planned and cut designs in his wooden pieces! My……

A Fiesta of Color and Music

Like most people of Andalusia, the people of Arcangel are poor. But they are too proud to quarrel with their fate. Instead they make war against sadness with songs and dances, with laughter, and with joy at just being alive. That joy erupts like a volcano once a year during the three-day fiesta. During the……

An Evening of Song

Aunt Annie turned briskly to Jock. “Play us a wee tune on your fiddle,” she said. Jock rose awkwardly and reached for his violin. Sheila went to the piano to accompany him. Jock, his violin tucked under his chin, moved the bow slowly and lovingly across the strings. And, after the tuning, the music came,……

Bonnie Charlie

BY CAROLINA OLIPHANT (LADY NAIRNE), set to a traditional Scottish folk tune. (To be learned as a class, distributing stanzas.) Bonnie Charlie’s noo awa Safely o’er the friendly main; He’rts will a’most break in twa Should he no’ come back again. Chorus Will ye no’ come back again? Will ye no’ come back again? Better……

The Singer

I saw a man of fifty or thereabouts, not a mountaineer, but a man of the plains – tall and square, large and full of travel – and as he went, he sang. I said, “You sing to advertise your trade?” He answered, “I do. It lifts the heart, it shortens the way, it guarantees……