LOVE OF BEAUTY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17745, 15 January 1926, Page 9

LOVE OF BEAUTY.

It would have been good for all of us if the fairies had been present at our christenings, for if they had bestowed upon us only one gift we should have been rich, however poor the world might have made us in material things, if that one gift had been the love of beauty. In reality it would have been a two-fold gift, fot the love of beauty brings with it the power to see beauty in the ordinary things of everyday life. How cheering a thing it is to be able to see and appreciate beauty in odd corners and unexpected places, and how inexpressively dull and drab is the soul which, surrounded by beauty, sees nothing of it! Beauty lies everywhere if onl}- we could discover it —in the patch of blue sky which shows between dark clouds, in the ripples on a pond, in the sun shining on the gold, red and copper of autumn leaves, in a baby's hand, in the adoring eyes of your dog, in everj r flower that grows, from a rosebud to a daisy struggling up in a dusty patch of ground. The eyes that drink in beauty also have a way of seeing always the ugliness, dirt and misery of life. Just as bright sunshine causes deep shadows to be cast, so a love of beauty gives a sensitiveness to the things which hurt. One cannot love the fluffiness of a little rabbit’s tail without having a vision of that rabbit lying tortured in a cruel trap. There is so much cruelty underlying what seems fa'ir, so many “ goodly apples rotten at the core,” that at times lovers of beauty feel sick at heart and in despair. But if no one had the compensation of seeing beauty in dull places, then should we all be sad. and perhaps mad, and cruelty and wickedness would flourish. A love of beauty and a determination to make beauty so grow that it will spread over all the earth until everyone sees and loves it, will help to set right the wrongs from which so many suffer.