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 existance. different and,because the exper-
ience 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 that 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 art has this power of suggesting a world beyond is
undeniabel. 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 great beauty, a
vision which passes before it is gully glimpsed, and in passing leaves an 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, ans 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 world 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.