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 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 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 and 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.