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