224 REV. STEWART A. MCDOWALL, M.A., B.D., ON 



of yearning desire, and tliis means that we feel something to be 

 lacking to us. Moreover, the yearning is creative ; those of 

 us who can do so pour out our creative effort in music, in painting, 

 in poetry ; those of us who have less power of artistic expression 

 in an objective medium turn back to our daily work with a 

 feeling of inspiration. We have at least been witnesses of a 

 Transfiguration, and something of its holiness abides with us, 

 giving new meaning to our tasks. 



Nevertheless, the immediate effect of our vision was dis- 

 satisfaction, and dissatisfaction of a peculiar type. There is 

 only one thing that resembles it at all, and that does so com- 

 pletely. This thing is unrequited love. Now in unrequited 

 love we are receiving all and giving nothing. All the beauty, 

 all the grace, all the charm of the loved person is given to us 

 in unstinted measure, for the gift cannot be withheld. But 

 the object of our love will have nothing from us. We cannot 

 give again. The relation is not reciprocal : hence our pain. 

 I am aware that this idea that we are receiving and not giving is 

 precisely the opposite of that usually entertained, but nevertheless 

 I am convinced that a very few moments' thought will show that 

 it is the true account of what happens. 



Now when we see a beautiful thing precisely the same thing 

 happens. We are receiving : we cannot give. The reciprocal 

 relation which personality demands is absent. Hence the 

 dissatisfaction. But we have seen that it issues in a desire to 

 create. Why ? Surely because we feel that we must give 

 something in return for what we have received. A vision has 

 been vouchsafed to us, and we must see to it that others gain 

 something from what we have learned, because, as Croce has 

 shown, what we have learned is Reality. Here again we are 

 up against the demand of personality for relation with other 

 personalities. Relationship, always relationship, is craved. 

 But the only relationship that satisfies is the relationship 

 of reciprocal love. Love is the ultimate reality for personal 

 beings. In love, giving and receiving are balanced equally. 

 But between Beauty and Love there is a close relation. 



So far I have only said again very briefly what I have already 

 tried to say elsewhere. Before we pass on to some applications 

 of this view, let me run over again the points that are fundamental 

 to it. 



Our first contact with Reality is by an intuition. This intuition 

 we have to express clearly to ourselves, and in expressing it we 



