"BEAUTY."

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 248, 18 October 1924, Page 61 (Supplement)

"BEAUTY."

A WORD IN COMMON USE, BUT HARD TO DEFINE.

(By J. LIDDELL KELLY.)

••The licht that n.-v rr was on sea or Bho abe Consecration and tbe Puefs dream," Ask any average person—who probar.iy uses tbe word, or the adjectival form of it, at least three times a day— what he means by '•beauty," and either ho will be completely nonplussed, or will give an absurdly inadequate answer Kot only w ! ll he fail to define beauty, but he will be unable to express in ■words his conception of it. Ask the bookworm, and he may reply with the dictionary statement: "An assemblage of properties in a person or object •which attracts and pleases the senses, especially the eye." . You say this is very incomplete, for there are many forms of beauty that make no appeal to the senses. He may then try you with the next dictionary definition:'"A particular feature, grace, or ornament." This, you will tell him, is going from bad to worse, for there is good authority for the statement that beauty "needs not the foreign aid of ornament." The worried individual may quote one poet ap-inst another by flinging at you the dictum of Keats: "A thing of'beautv is a joy for ever,"' thinking this the last word on the subject. But it is not so; for many beautiful things are very evanescent—a rainbow, for instance, or the bloom of a maiden's cheek. When "God makes Himself a splendid rose of dawn." the sight, is one of supreme beauty; but it soon passes, to be succeeded often by leaden skies and unsightly clouds. Even memory cannot make that glorious sunrise a" joy for ever, for the impression grows fainter and fainter, and finally fades from the consciousness. "What, then is beauty? To the young man, the face and form of his lady-love are the embodiment of beauty. So is the object of evervnne's admiration or pursuit. The angler, displaying the latest trophy of his rod, asks, ""Isn't she a beauty?" The yachtsman gazing on his yacht, the engineer on his engine, the motorist on his car, employ the same fervid expression. The equestrian refers to his horse as a "beauty"; the successful golfer or bowler similarly cliaracterises his brilliant shot. Ail these are forms of beauty that please the eye. A lovely child, a sportive lambkin, a graceful bird, a fallow deer, are other examples. But what of the striped tiger, the hooded snake, or spotted leopard? If m test beauty by any of the other senses, there seems to be something wanting. The ear is charmed by sweet music or mellifluous elocution; these are beautiful, but so also is the crash of thunder; and "there's beauty in the bellow of the blast!" When we come to the senses of smell, taste, and touch, we find men and women all "at sixes and sevens'' as to what is deserving to be eal!»d beautiful—what one likes another detests, what is pleasing to one is objectionable to another. The appeal of true beauty must therefore be to the faculties rather than the senses. To discover the meaning of beauty we must not be content with the objective view of it, but must consider it subjectively. Many objects are beautiful, but they arc not beauty itself. Is not beauty a subjective thing that resides in the perceiving person rather than in the thing seen? It has been truly remarked that everyone gets out of a book only what he brings to it—neither more nor less. So with beauty. If it were an objective reality, all would agree about it; whereas, in so far as it appeals to the senses, everyone perceives it differently. All thing are yellow to the jaundiced eye. Ask anyone who is in deep pain, perplexity, or dejection to join with you in admiring the beauty of a landscape or a sunset, and note how he utterly fails to see it. There is truth in the common expression, "He has an eye for beauty." The young, the healthy, the enthusiastic have the gift. The old and the worldlyminded, of the "Xorthern Farmer" type, ask, "What's beauty? The wind as blaws." As the properties or qualities of beauty convey different impressions to different people, it is surely reasonable to conclude that beauty exists in the eye of the beholder—the inner eye included—rather than in the object of vision or contemplation. Then, there is ideal beauty, moral and spiritual beauty, "the beauty pf holiness." There is also "the beauty of utility"—of fitness, of adaptation" of means to ends: this kind of beauty doubtless appeals to the mind's eye of the engineer, motorist, and yachtsman, when they style the objects of their admiration "beauties"; and most people can perceive this kind of beauty, as it is on the practical plane. When we come to the higher spheres of moral and spiritual beauty, there will be found to be almost complete agreement— showing that the 'spiritual senses are more nearly perfect than the physical. Nearly every person—no matter of what degree of mental development— admires a noble, heroic, courageous or unselfish action; they recognise its beauty at once. All see the beauty of a useful life, of an upright character, of a lovely disposition, of a serene old age, when grey hairs are a crown of glory. There are higher pleasures reserved for the few who- possess clearer perception of beauty—those who have the educated rye for painting, sculpture and architecture, the cultivated ear for music, the elevated taste for pure literature. It also requires a certain amount of culture to perceive the beauty of a grand conception or idea —a "beautiful thought," as it is commonly called —or a fine expression. Over-culture is, however, a mistake —"excess in all things is a fault," as a French poet says—and over-developed people suffer torture when they meet with anything that falls short of their high standard of beauty; and 99 per cent is below that standard. Such and so various are the tastes of mm that it would bo strange if there * ore not many different conceptions of beauty. We have seen, I think, that the conception in which most people aprer is the recognition of moral and spiritual beauty, as manifested in chararrer, disposition, life, and service to ethers. But readers are warned not to exppet a reply in accordance with this from more than ten per cent of those •o whom they may put the question— -What is Beauty?" The answer is more likely to be one or other of the following:— Tne P {a U te S in millinery. 1 r «SSu£&n ng of Pl &we. Powder. lip stick and brilliantine. Or the person asked may respond by giving the name of some popular actress or "movie star." If. however one w,shes to avoid being classed with tne heathen in his blindness," he willl use one of the following definitions when asked to state