Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind Page #3

"Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind" is a thought-provoking tale by celebrated Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It explores the comparison and contrast of physical beauty and inner beauty, emphasising the importance of the latter. The story centers around a beautiful narcissistic prince and a sweet-spirited but average-looking poet and their experiences with love and empathy. Andersen delicately portrays how outer beauty can be deceiving, and how meaningful conversations and a pure heart possess a beauty of their own.

• Children

								

statue, which awoke to life in my arms; but the kindred soul, which is
a gift from heaven, the angel who can feel and sympathize with and
elevate us, I have not found and won till now.  You came, Sophy, not in
the glory of outward beauty, though you are even fairer than is
necessary.  The chief thing still remains.  You came to teach the
sculptor that his work is but dust and clay only, an outward form made
of a material that decays, and that what we should seek to obtain is
the ethereal essence of mind and spirit.  Poor Kaela!  our life was
but as a meeting by the way-side; in yonder world, where we shall know
each other from a union of mind, we shall be but mere acquaintances."

"That was not a loving speech," said Sophy, "nor spoken like a
Christian.  In a future state, where there is neither marrying nor
giving in marriage, but where, as you say, souls are attracted to each
other by sympathy; there everything beautiful develops itself, and
is raised to a higher state of existence: her soul will acquire such
completeness that it may harmonize with yours, even more than mine,
and you will then once more utter your first rapturous exclamation
of your love, 'Beautiful, most beautiful!'"
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