Enduring Beauty

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  “Beauty is the quality which makes to endure. In a house that I know, I have noticed a block of spermaceti lying about closets and mantel-pieces, for twenty years together, simply because the tallow-man gave it the form of a rabbit; and, I suppose, it may continue to be lugged about unchanged for a century. Let an artist scrawl a few lines or figures on the back of a letter, and that scrap of paper is rescued from danger, is put in portfolio, is framed and glazed, and, in proportion to the beauty of the lines drawn, will be kept for centuries. Burns writes a copy of verses, and sends them to a newspaper, and the human race take charge of them that they shall not perish.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803–1882).   Essays and English Traits.

Love and Respect

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Can this be right? Does Tolstoy really mean this? The quote actually comes from a conversation in the novel, Anna Karenina. Was she right? Is respect a substitute for love? 


Since love is displayed in so many forms, every manifestation of love must be absent in order for respect to appear, if this were true. Respect would be a curios invention indeed, especially since respect has value. Wouldn’t it be correct to say that respect is actually a form of love? It’s been argued that love is private and respect is public. In the novel, the speaker depending on this, has lost in both arenas and is desperately grasping. So, not so great a sentiment, is it?


It would be correct to say that disrespect fills the empty place where love should be. Both are found in the context of relationships. Every display of disrespect spreads chaos, is without honor, careless, selfish, loveless. Love invents. Disrespect destroys. 


Tolstoy wasn’t wrong. Anna was.

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