[al:新概念英语（四）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:Beauty] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.49]Lesson 24 [00:03.72]Beauty [00:11.42]What do glimpses of beauty, either in nature or art, [00:15.41]often suggest to the human mind? [00:20.11]A young man sees a sunset and, [00:22.89]unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, [00:27.30]concludes that it must be the gateway to a world that lies beyond [00:32.45]It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience [00:37.56]to resist the suggestion that we are catching a glimpse of a light [00:42.21]that shines down to us from a different realm of existence, different and, [00:47.75]because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. [00:52.84]And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, yet do they convey a hint of beauty and serenity [00:59.31]greater than we have known or imagined. Greater too than we can describe; [01:05.40]for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world [01:09.93]cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another. [01:14.60]That all great art has this power of suggesting a world beyond is undeniable. [01:21.65]In some moods, nature shares it. [01:24.88]There is no sky in June so blue that it does not point forward to a bluer, [01:30.55]no sunset so beautiful that it does not waken the vision of a greater beauty, [01:36.33]a vision which passes before it is fully glimpsed, [01:41.00]and in passing leaves an indefinable longing and regret. [01:45.80]But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, [01:48.94]life a vulgar flare amid the cool radiance of the stars, [01:53.14]and existence an empty laugh braying across the mysteries; [01:57.82]if these intimations of a something behind and beyond [02:02.10]are not evil humour born of indigestion, [02:05.16]or whimsies sent by the devil to mock and madden us, if, in a word [02:11.75]beauty means something yet we must not seek to interpret the meaning. [02:17.88]If we glimpse the unutterable, it is unwise to try to utter it, [02:23.05]nor should we seek to invest with significance that which we cannot grasp. [02:28.86]Beauty in terms of our human meanings is meaningless.