We should roll our single eye with a proud
feeling that we were in the true line of beauty, from which the two-eyed
man in front was a hideous and fantastic departure.
Beauty, in short, is only a tribute which we pay to necessity. In equipping
itself for the struggle for existence humanity has found that it is
convenient to have two eyes and a stereoscopic vision, just as it is
convenient to have four fingers on the hand and one thumb instead of five
thumbs. Our members have been developed in the manner best fitted to enable
us to fight our battle. And the more perfectly they fulfil that supreme
condition the more beautiful we declare them to be. Our ideas of beauty,
therefore, are not absolute; they are conditional. They are the humble
servants of our necessity. Two eyes are necessary for us to get about our
business, and so we fall in love with two eyes, and the more perfect they
are for their work the more we fall in love with them, and the more
beautiful we declare them to be.
I think that Peggy, nursing her one-eyed cat there in the sun, has not yet
accepted our creed of beauty.
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