THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



Ruskin explained vital beauty. 



An aesthetic person is one who can perceive and 

 loves the beautiful. Aesthetic pleasure results from 

 the perception of beauty in nature, art, or literature, in 

 the human intellect, or in character. Ugliness, the 

 opposite of beauty, gives rise to aesthetic pain. Beauty, 

 grandeur and pathos, then — all that can soothe the 

 mind, gratify the imagination, or move the affections — 

 belong the province of the aesthetic, and give rise to 

 feelings which constitute a most important element in 

 happiness. TTie indulgence of such aesthetic feelings 

 brightens and elevates life. On the other hand, mere 

 absence of beauty, or the presence of what is aesthetic- 

 ally ugly, tends to make men depressed and miserable 

 and hard to live with. Nothing is so insignificant that 

 it has not a beautiful side, that it does not suggest some 

 glimpse of spiritual loveliness; and no pen can depict 

 the power of a soul that recognizes the beautiful in 

 the humblest creations of God, and lives in an atmos- 

 phere of poetry — of beauty plus spirituality, of trans- 

 figured life. 



The art of living is the art of filling every hour of 

 life with beautiful thoughts, beautiful deeds, kindness 



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