Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion.
“On barren days,
At hours when I, apart, have
Bent low in thought of the great charm thou hast,
Behold with music’s many-stringed charms
The silence groweth thou. O rare delight!
The melody upon clear strings inflected
Were dull when o’er taut sense thy presence floweth,
With quivering notes’ accord that never palleth.”
Ezra Pound | “Canzon: Of Incense”