Beauty 美

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 gateway¹ to world that lies beyond.

It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic²（美的） experience to resist the suggestion that we are catching³ 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（耀眼的光，灿烂） , yet do they convey a hint of beauty and serenity⁴ 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 fully⁵ glimpsed, and in passing leaves and indefinable longing⁶ and regret.

But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, life a vulgar flare⁷ amid the cool radiance of the stars,

and existence an empty laugh braying⁸（捣碎） across the mysteries;

if these intimations（暗示） of a something behind and beyond are not evil humour born of indigestion（消化不良） , or whimsies⁹（怪念头） 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.