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Lesson 24 |
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Beauty |
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What do glimpses of beauty, either in nature or art, |
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often suggest to the human mind? |
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A young man sees a sunset and, |
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unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, |
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concludes that it must be the gateway to a world that lies beyond |
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It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience |
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to resist the suggestion that we are catching a glimpse of a light |
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that shines down to us from a different realm of existence, different and, |
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because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. |
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And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, yet do they convey a hint of beauty and serenity |
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greater than we have known or imagined. Greater too than we can describe; |
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for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world |
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cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another. |
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That all great art has this power of suggesting a world beyond is undeniable. |
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In some moods, nature shares it. |
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There is no sky in June so blue that it does not point forward to a bluer, |
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no sunset so beautiful that it does not waken the vision of a greater beauty, |
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a vision which passes before it is fully glimpsed, |
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and in passing leaves an indefinable longing and regret. |
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But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, |
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life a vulgar flare amid the cool radiance of the stars, |
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and existence an empty laugh braying across the mysteries; |
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if these intimations of a something behind and beyond |
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are not evil humour born of indigestion, |
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or whimsies sent by the devil to mock and madden us, if, in a word |
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beauty means something yet we must not seek to interpret the meaning. |
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If we glimpse the unutterable, it is unwise to try to utter it, |
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nor should we seek to invest with significance that which we cannot grasp. |
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Beauty in terms of our human meanings is meaningless. |