s a r a h

an immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is a sense of the Beautiful. the Beautiful administers to our delight in manifold forms: in sounds, odours, and the sentiments amid which we exist. and just as the eyes are repeated in the mirror, so is the repetition of these sentiments a duplicate source of delight.but this mere repetition is not the Beauty. he who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, he, i say, has yet failed to prove his divine title.there is still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. we have still a thirst unquenchable. this thirst belongs to the immortality of man. it is at once a consequence and an indication of our perennial existence. it is the desire of the moth for the star. it is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above.and thus when by poetry or when by music, we find ourselves melted into tears -- we weep then. not through excess pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the arts, we attain but brief and indeterminate glimpses.that pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, i maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. in the contemplation of the Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation, or excitement, of the soul. -edgar allan poe // I pimped my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4