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Death and Beauty are two realities of human life. Death is the end of everything; Beauty is the beginning of everything. Now everyone will say obviously true to the former. We all die. Many think there is some kind of reality beyond death, but that is after human life. As far as earthly life is concerned, however, death is the end, the “bourn from which no traveler returns.” But what can be thought about beauty? And why bring them together? What can be thought is that we will all die, and we all like beauty. Further, we can tell the difference between alive and dead, and we can tell the difference between beautiful and not beautiful , that is, ugly. 

Can you think of something that some would call alive, but others dead? No. Can you think of something that some would call beautiful and others ugly? Be careful now. Leave out emotions and states of mind. Leave out novelty. Leave out claims of difference, value,  and popularity. Leave out the effects of size or distance. Leave out bequests (with name of doner) to art museums. What’s left is something that is beautiful or ugly, something that is not “in the eye of the beholder”. Some persevering reality that we  call ‘beauty’. 

Beauty is one of the three verities or transcendentals. (Check Word #30.)    In life there is death. There is also beauty. Life can end. Beauty cannot. 

I will leave  you with a line from the ‘Sermon On The Mount’: “Consider the lilies of the field. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.”

If there are weaknesses or holes in my arguments, I’d be very grateful if  you would let me know. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. They are neither beautiful nor ugly.