he sense of the loving apprehension
of the mystery of lights and hues; and then he will trace the same
subtle spirit in the forms and gestures and expressions of those among
whom he lives, and will go deeper yet and trace the same spirit in
conduct and behaviour, in the free and gallant handling of life, in
the suppression of mean personal desires, in doing dull and
disagreeable things with a fine end in view, in the noble affection of
the simplest people; until he becomes aware that it is a quality which
runs through everything he sees or hears or feels, and that the
eternal difference is whether one views things dully and stupidly,
regarding the moment hungrily and greedily, as a dog regards a
plateful of food, or whether one looks at it all as a process which
has some fine and distant end in view, and sees that all experience,
whether it be of things tangible and visible, or of things
intellectual and spiritual, is only precious because it carries one
forward, forms, moulds, and changes one with a hope of some high and
pure resurrection out of things base and hurried into things noble and
serene.

The need, the absolute need for all and each of us, is to find
something strong and great to rest and repose upon. Otherwise one
simply falls back on the fact that one exists and on the whole enjoys
existing, while one shuns the pain and darkness of ceasing to exist.
As life goes on, there comes such an impulse to say, "Life is
attractive and might be pleasant, but there is always something
shadowing it, spoiling it, gnawing at it, a worm in the bud, of which
one cannot be rid." And so one sinks into a despairing apathy.

What then is one born for? Just to live and forget, to be hurt and
healed, to be strong and grow weak? That as the spirit falls into
faintness, the body should curdle into worse than dust? To give each a
memory of things sharp and sweet, that no one else remembers, and then
to destroy that?

No, that is not the end! The end is rather to live fully and ardently,
to recognise the indestructibility of the spirit, to strip off from it
all that wounds and disables it, not by drearily toiling against
haunting faults, but by rising as often as we can into serene ardour
and deep hopefulness. That is the principle of beauty, to feel that
there is something transforming and ennobling us, which we can lay
hold of if we wish, and that every time we see the great spirit at
work and clasp it close to our feeble will