"In one way, of

course, God has given us the Morning Star

already: you can go and enjoy the gift on

many fine mornings if you get up early

enough. What more, you may ask, do we

want? Ah, but we want so much more—

something the books on aesthetics take

little notice of. But the poets and the

mythologies know all about it. We do not

want merely to see beauty, though, God

knows, even that is bounty enough. We

want something else which can hardly be

put into words—to be united with the

beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it

into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become

part of it. That is why we have peopled air

and earth and water with gods and

goddesses and nymphs and elves—that,

though we cannot, yet these projections

can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace,

and power of which Nature is the image.

That is why the poets tell us such lovely

falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind

could really sweep into a human soul; but

it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of

murmuring sound” will pass into a human

face; but it won’t... Or not yet."

---C.S. Lewis