As man advances through life, and begins to see things from a higher angle, then everything the world has agreed to call beauty loses much of its importance for him, as well as carnal pleasures and other trifles of that sort.
In the eyes of a clear-sighted and disillusioned man each season has its beauty, and it is not spring that is the most enchanting, nor winter the most evil. Henceforth beauty for him will not mean the promise of physical pleasure and happiness. It is Stendhal who says that beauty will henceforth be the form which promises the most kindliness, most loyalty in fulfilling one's side of the bargain, most honesty in keeping trust, most delicacy in intellectual perception. Ugliness will mean cruelty, avarice, falseness and stupidity. Many men do not know these things and only learn them later to their own cost. Just a few know them now, but each knows them for himself alone.
Beaudelaire
In similar vein, Coleridge:
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the night thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles
Quietly shining to the quiet moon
In the eyes of a clear-sighted and disillusioned man each season has its beauty, and it is not spring that is the most enchanting, nor winter the most evil. Henceforth beauty for him will not mean the promise of physical pleasure and happiness. It is Stendhal who says that beauty will henceforth be the form which promises the most kindliness, most loyalty in fulfilling one's side of the bargain, most honesty in keeping trust, most delicacy in intellectual perception. Ugliness will mean cruelty, avarice, falseness and stupidity. Many men do not know these things and only learn them later to their own cost. Just a few know them now, but each knows them for himself alone.
Beaudelaire
In similar vein, Coleridge:
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the night thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles
Quietly shining to the quiet moon
