Beauty Is Meaningless

A young man sees a sunset and, unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, concludes that it must be the gateway to a world that lies beyond. It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience to resist the suggestion that we are catching a glimpse of a light that shines down to us from a different realm of existence, different and, because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, yet they do convey a hint of beuty and serenity greater than we have known or imagined. Greater too than we can describe, for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world, cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another.

年輕人看到日落，由于無法理解或表達心中激起的那種強烈感情，便斷定日落處一定是通往遙遠世界的大門。我們任何人在強烈感受到美的時刻都不禁聯想到：我們似乎瞥見從一個不同世界射向我們的一線光芒，不僅不同，而且因為這種美具有強烈的感染力，所以在某種程度上更高級。還有，盡管這光芒使人眼花繚亂，但它確實傳送了一種我們未曾經歷的和無法想像的美和靜謐的啟示。這種美和靜謐是我們所不能描述的，因為人們創造語言的目的是表達我們的世界的各種意義，無法輕易地運用于另一個世界。

That all great art has this power of suggesting a world beyond is undeniable. In some moods, nature shares it. There is no sky in June so blue that it does not point forward to a bluer, no sunset beautiful so that it does not waken the vision of a greater beauty, a vision which passes before it is fully glimpsed, and in passing leaves an indefinable longing and regret. But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, life a vulgar flare amid the cool radiance of the stars, and existence an empty laugh braying across the mysteries, if these intimations of a something behind and beyond are not evil humor born of indigestion, or whimsies sent by the devil to mock and madden us, if, in a word, beauty means something, yet we must not seek to interpret the meaning. If we glimpse the unutterable, it is unwise to try to utter it, nor should we seek to invest with significance that which we cannot grasp. Beauty is in the terms of human meanings is meaningless.

不可否認，一切偉大的藝術都具有使人超塵脫俗的浮想的力量。在某種狀態下，大自然就具有這種魅力。六月的天空不是藍得不能再藍，日落不是美得不能再喚起一個更美的景象，一個未被飽覽就消失的、而且在消失的時候留給人們一種莫名的渴望和遺憾的景象。但是，如果這個世界不只是一場惡作劇的話，如果生命不只是慘淡的星光里的平凡的一閃的話，如果存在不只是神秘的宗教發出的一陣空虛的笑聲的話，如果對某種玄妙的事物的暗示不是由于消化不良而引起的不好情緒，或者不是一種魔鬼送來嘲笑我們并使我們發狂的怪念頭的話，一句話，如果美有某種意義的話，我們千萬不要設法去闡明它的意義。如果我們瞥見難以言傳的東西，企圖用語言把它表達出來是不明智的。我們也不應該設法給我們所不理解的事物賦予意義。從人生各種意義來看，美是難以言傳的。