(Do we not know that man in moments of emotion expresses himself
naturally in the terms of a novelette?) Stroeve was trying to
express a feeling which he had never known before, and he did
not know how to put it into common terms. He was like the
mystic seeking to describe the ineffable. But one fact he
made clear to me; people talk of beauty lightly, and having no
feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it
loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name
with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity.
They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are
face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it. The false
emphasis with which they try to deck their worthless thoughts
blunts their susceptibilities. Like the charlatan who
counterfeits a spiritual force he has sometimes felt, they
lose the power they have abused. But Stroeve, the
unconquerable buffoon, had a love and an understanding of
beauty which were as honest and sincere as was his own sincere
and honest soul. It meant to him what God means to the
believer, and when he saw it he was afraid.
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