that it was dry--this was just a brick-red. It needed
the grey grain.... I reflected that there must be a deep human reason
for its appeal to our sense of beauty.

There was something in the hollowing and rounded edges, such as no
machine or hand-grinding could duplicate, but that had to do with the
age of the impression it gave. There is beauty in age, a fine mystery in
itself. Often the objects which our immediate forebears found decorative
strike our finer eyes as hideous, and with truth; but the more ancient
things which simpler races found useful and lovely, often appeal to us
as consummate in charm and grace, though we may never have seen them
before in this life. The essence of their beauty now is a certain
thrilling familiarity--the same mystery that awakens us in an occasional
passing face, which we are positive has not met these eyes before.

We are all more or less sensitive to mystic relationships with old vases
and coppers, with gourds and bamboo, urns and sandal-wood, with the
scents and flavours of far countries and sudden stretches of coast, so
that we repeat in wonder--"And this is the first time----" Something
deep within knows better, perhaps. It is enough, however, to grant the
profound meanings underlying our satisfaction in ancient objects, and
that our sense of their beauty is not accidental.

For instance, there was something behind our pleasure in the gleam of
red from the pervading greys of the beach.... I pointed to the Other
Shore--a pearly cloud overhanging the white of breakers at its
point--and the little bay asleep in the hollow. The view was a
fulfilment. That little headland breaks the force of the eastern gales
for all this nearer stretch of shore, but its beauty is completed by the
peace of the cove. The same idea is in the stone-work of the Chapel, and
the completing vine.

Beauty is a globe of meaning. It is a union of two objects which
complete each other and suggest a third--the union of two to make one.
Our minds are satisfied with the sustaining, the masculine in the
stone-work and the gaunt headland, because they are completed by the
trailing vine and the sleeping cove. The suggestion in each is peace,
the very quest of life.

There is always this trinity, to form a globe of beauty. From the union
of matter and spirit, all life is quickened; and this initial formula of
completing a circle, a trinity, pervades all life.

We are thrilled by the symbols of the great origina