Beauty Has Not Vanished beneath the Ruins of the Centuries

     When the personality, the intellect, philosophy arose from the
legendary depths of mythical humanity, when nature was discovered
by man, when "the earth, the wavy sea, the moist air, and the Titan
Ether," were solemnly sung, beauty dwelled naked among men.
     In every century beauty changed.  Beauty did not vanish beneath
the ruins of the centuries, it vanished into the Maya, into the mirage.
So many rare and priceless garments had been showered upon her, she
no longer knew in which to show herself.
     Which is the original image of beauty?  Which is the image "of
beauty's gushing fountain, the picture that flows from the source...?"
Is it the naked corporeality of the Greeks, is it the disguise, the 
veil, the pageant of the Renaissance, is it the disembodied yearning 
of Gothic, is it the cube and the sphere, is it the love and the harmony
of which Empedocles said: "There were no two arms extending from a
trunk, nor were there feet or swift knees or organs of procreation;
there was a sphairos the same in all its aspects."  Is not beauty
naked reality, inner reality, inner sphairos?
     

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