It is such a perennial mystery to me what beauty is; it baffles me
entirely. No one has ever helped me to discover in what region of the
spirit it abides. The philosopher begins by telling you that the
simplest and most elementary form of beauty which appeals to every one,
the beauty of human beings, has its root originally only in desire; but
I cannot follow that, because that would only account for one's
admiring a certain kind of fresh and youthful beauty, and in admiring
human beauty less and less as it declines from that. But this is not
the case at all; because there is a beauty of age which is often, in
its way, a more impressive and noble thing than the beauty of youth.
And there is, too, the beauty of expression, a far more subtle and
moving thing than mere beauty of feature: we must have often seen, for
instance, a face which by all the canons of beauty might be pronounced
admirable, yet the effect of which is wholly unattractive; while, on
the other hand, we have known faces that, from some ruggedness or want
of proportion, seemed at first sight even repellent, which have yet
come to hold for one an extraordinary quality of attractiveness, from
the beauty of the soul being somehow revealed in them, and are yet as
remote from any sense of desire as the beauty of a tree or a crag.
And then, again, in dealing with the beauty of nature, I have heard
philosophers say that the appeal which it makes is traceable to a sense
of prosperity or well-being; and that the love of landscape has grown
up out of the sense of satisfaction with which our primaeval ancestors
saw a forest full of useful timber and crowded with edible game. But
that again is entirely contradicted by my experience.
I went to-day on a vague walk in the country, taking attractive by-ways
and field-paths, and came in the course of the afternoon to a lonely
village among wide pastures which I had never visited before. The
bell-like sound of smitten metal, ringing cheerfully from a smithy,
outlined against the roar of a blown fire, seemed to set my mind in
tune. I turned into the tiny street. The village lies on no high-road;
it is remote and difficult of access, but at one time it enjoyed a
period of prosperity because of a reputation for dairy produce; and
there were half-a-dozen big farm-houses on the street, of different
dates, which testified to this. There was an old timbered Grange,
deserted, falling into ruin. There was a house with charming high brick
gables at either end, with little battlemented crow-steps, and with
graceful chimney-stacks at the top. There was another solid Georgian
house, with thick white casements and moss-grown tiling--all of them
showing signs of neglect and fallen fortunes.
But the ruined Grange, with a moat round it full of willows and big
water-plants, approached by a pretty bridge with ruinous parapets, had
the perfect quality of beauty. Yet all the associations that it aroused
were sad ones. It spoke of an old and prosperous family life, full of
simple happiness, brought to an end of desertion and desolation. It
seemed to say, like the Psalmist, "I see that all things come to an
end." Just opposite was a new and comfortable farm-house, the only
prosperous house in the village, with a trim lawn, and big barns
covered with corrugated iron roofing. Everything about it spoke of
comfort and security. Yet the only appeal that it made to the spirit
was that one wished it out of sight, while the ruined Grange touched
the heart with yearning and pathos, and even with a far-off and
beautiful hope. The transfiguring hand of time was laid gently upon it,
and there was not a single detail of the scene which was not filled
with a haunting sense of delight and sweetness.
It was just at sunset that I saw it; and as the sun went down and the
colour began to ebb out of bush and wall, the sense of its beauty and
grace became every instant more and more acute. A long train of rooks,
flying quietly homeward, drifted across the rose-flushed clouds.
Everything alike spoke of peace, of a quiet ending, of closed eyes and
weary hearts at rest. And yet the sense was not a joyful one, for it
was all overshadowed by a consciousness of the unattainable. What
increased the mystery was that the very thought that it could not be
attained, the yearning for the impossible, was what seemed to lend the
deepest sense of beauty to the scene. Who can interpret these things?
Who can show why it is that the sense of beauty, that deep hunger of
the heart, is built up on the fact that the dream cannot be realised?
Yet so it is. The sense of beauty, whatever it may be, seems to depend
upon the fact that the soul there catches a glimpse of something that
waits to bless it--and upon which it cannot lay its hand; or is aware
that if it does for a moment apprehend it, yet that a moment later it
will be dragged rudely back into a different region. The sense of
beauty is then of its nature accompanied by sadness; it is essentially
evanescent. A beautiful thing with which we grow familiar stands often
before us dumb and inarticulate, with no appeal to the spirit. Then
perhaps in a sudden movement, the door of the spirit is unlatched, and
the soul for a moment discerns the sweet essence, to which an instant
before it had been wholly unresponsive, and which an instant later will
lose its power. It seems to point to a possible satisfaction; and yet
it owes its poignancy to the fact that the heart is still unsatisfied.