晨读英语美文 On Beauty

On Beauty 

[00:05.69]A young man sees a sunset and, 

[00:08.66]unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, 

[00:14.50]concludes that it must be the gateway to a world that lies beyond. 

[00:20.21]It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience 

[00:25.90]to resist the suggestion that 

[00:28.23]we are catching a glimpse of a light that shines down to us 

[00:32.64]from a different realm of existence, different and, 

[00:36.62]because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. 

[00:43.43]And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, 

[00:47.01]yet do they convey a hint of beauty and serenity greater 

[00:51.29]than we have known or imagined. 

[00:54.31]Greater too than we can describe; 

[00:57.28]for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world, 

[01:02.14]cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another.  

[01:06.65]That all great art has this power of suggesting a world beyond is undeniable. 

[01:14.15]In some moods nature shares it. 

[01:17.50]There is no sky in June so blue that it does not point forward to a bluer, 

[01:23.98]no sunset so beautiful that it does not waken the vision of a greater beauty, 

[01:29.98]a vision which passes before it is fully glimpsed, 

[01:33.77]and in passing leaves an indefinable longing and regret. 

[01:39.55]But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, 

[01:44.13]life a vulgar flare amid the cool radiance of the stars, 

[01:49.04]and existence an empty laugh braying across the mysteries: 

[01:54.34]if these intimations of a something behind 

[01:59.50]and beyond are not evil humor born of indigestion, 

[02:02.39]or whimsies sent by the devil to mock and madden us; 

[02:06.76]if, in a word, beauty means something, 

[02:11.15]yet we must not seek to interpret the meaning. 

[02:14.37]If we glimpse the unutterable, 

[02:16.70]it is unwise to try to utter it, 

[02:19.70]nor should we seek to invest with significance 

[02:23.41]that which we cannot grasp. 

[02:25.97]Beauty in terms of our human meanings is meaningless.