There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew: The conscious stone to beauty grew.
It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from asbsolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality?
I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow's feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.
Without the great arts which speak to the sense of beauty, a man seems to me a poor, naked, shivering creature. These are his becoming draperies, which warm and adorn him.