40 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
comments that art needs no other justification than beauty
itself, Whittier responds characteristically in the person of
the singer:
Better so (to have a moral in poetry)
Than bolder flights that know no check;
Better to use the bit, than throw
The reins all loose on fancy’s neck.
The liberal range of Art should be
The breadth of Christian liberty,
Beyond the poet’s sweet dream lives
The eternal epic of man.
And Whittier concludes by saying that the “truth” of art, its
faithfulness to the dicta of Christianity, does not need the
“garnish of a lie,” or that elements of beauty for their own
sake are not necessary for good poetry. Confusing religion
with aesthetics, Whittier’s concept of the function of art re-
mained obscured throughout his life.
Of course, Whittiers intense reform activity strengthened
his devotion to literature based on Christian goodness and
truth, and this conviction formed an essential part of his
mature views on beauty. Once his reform interests lessened
in the 1850’s, his confidence in outward action and social
progress changed to a reliance on inner values and individual
search; and his concepts of the beautiful and its relationship
to the artist deepened accordingly. The beauty of silence
and peace, fundamental to his belief in the “inner light,”
assumed a larger and more influential role in his poetry. Per-
haps the best expression of his changing views is in an essay
entitled “The Beautiful.” Written in 1844, the article fully
indicates the transition that Wliittier was making from his
stringent abolitionist position to a more inclusive view of
beauty. It states unequivocally that the external elements of
form and shape do not constitute the beautiful, nor does a