“Beautiful people think they need to enhance nature and “spruce themselves up,” presumably as a way of conforming to the pleasing role they play in life or of providing a service for gifts received– which, when taken as a kind of piety, is certainly excusable, whereas there is something sad and foolish about ugly people decking themselves out. But beauty, too, is never perfect and for that very reason incites to vanity; for beauty works hard to achieve what it finds lacking in its own self-imposed ideal– yet another error, for beauty’s secret actually consists in the attraction that comes from imperfection.”
Some thoughts from Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers, because I am too tired tonight, and my brain is too full, to give you thoughts of my own.
I do not quote Mr. Mann here because I necessarily agree with him (“quotes on this blog are not necessarily the view of this blogger”), but because– at the very least– I find it interesting, and, actually, I do find this True, at least in some ways….
And for those of you reading Mann’s tome at home, please know that I am Past this part of the text (which is on page 46 in John E. Woods’ translation) and on page…. Well, I’m not going to say yet what page I’m on, but it’s past page 46. Definitely Past.
