Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.
Affect not to despise beauty: no one is freed from its dominion; But regard it not a pearl of price--it is fleeting as the bow in the clouds.
The pageant of a former hour, Is Beauty in the Grave.
