INTRODUCTION 



Town children let loose in a meadow dash with 

 shouts of joy to pluck the nearest flowers. They 

 ravenously pick handfuls and armfuls as if they 

 could never have enough. They are exactly like 

 animals in the desert rushing to water. They are 

 satisfying a great thirst in their souls — the thirst 

 for Beauty. Some of us remember, too, our first 

 sight of snowy mountains in the Alps or in the 

 Himalaya. We recall how our spirits leaped to 

 meet the mountains, how we gasped in wonder and 

 greedily feasted our eyes on the glorious spectacle. 

 In such cases as these there is something in the 

 natural object that appeals to something in us. 

 Something in us rushes out to meet the something 

 in the natural object. A responsive chord is struck. 

 A relationship is established. We and the natural 

 object come into harmony with one another. We 

 have recognised in the flower, the mountain, the 

 landscape, something that is the same as what is in 

 ourselves. We fall in love with the natural object. 

 A marriage takes place. Our soul is wedded to the 

 soul of the natural object. And at the very 

 moment of wedding Beauty is born. It springs 

 from Love, just as Love itself originally sprang 

 from the wedding of primitive man and woman. 



XV 



