Put Beauty into Your Life

When barbarians overran Greece, desecrated her temples, and destroyed her beautiful works of art, even their savageness was somewhat tamed by the sense of beauty which prevailed everywhere. They broke her beautiful statues, it is true; but the spirit of beauty refused to die, and it transformed the savage heart and wakened even in the barbarian a new power.

The very life that would be complete; that would be sweet and sane, as well as strong, must be ornamented, softened, and enriched by a love of the beautiful. There is a lack in the make-up of a person who has no appreciation of beauty. We have a passion for adornment, but there is nothing to show that our aesthetic faculties are developed. We merely obey our animal instincts and passions.

But as civilization advances ambition grows, wants multiply, and higher and higher faculties show themselves, until the highest expression of civilization, we find aspiration and love of the beautiful most highly developed. We find it manifested on the person, in the home, and in the environment. What an infinite satisfaction comes from beginning early in life to cultivate our finer qualities, to developer finer sentiments, purer tastes, more delicate feelings, the love of the beautiful in all its varied forms of expression.

We can make no better investment than the cultivation of a taste for the beautiful, for it will bring rainbow hues and enduring joys to the whole life as we know it. It will not only greatly increase one's capacity for happiness, but also one's efficiency. The love of beauty plays a very important part in the poised, symmetrical life. We little realize how much we are influenced by beautiful people and things. We may see them so often that they become common in our experience and fail to attract much of our conscious attention, but every beautiful picture, every beautiful face and form, beauty in any form, wherever we encounter it, ennobles, refines and elevates character.

There is everything in keeping the soul and mind responsive to beauty. It is a great refresher, recuperate, life-giver, and health promoter. The vision you hold in your mind, the idea that is enthroned in your heart-this you will build your life by, this you will become. It is the quality of your mind, of ideas and not mere things, that make a person. Whatever our vocation, we should resolve that we will not strangle all that is finest and noblest in us for the sake of the dollar, but that we will put beauty into our life at every opportunity.