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 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.&