To: Solon who wrote (29567 ) 8/12/2012 3:19:33 AM From: 2MAR$ 1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 69300 "In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior." Ray Bradbury beautiful ,wise so reminds of something else just read along the same line will hopefully run across again but thats saved . One of my faves was from Heinlein commenting thru one of his old wise characters in Stranger in SL, the unforgettable Jubal Harshaw , who's looking at the statue of The Fallen Caryatid by Auguste Rodin the great master and being thoughtful . “Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.” Robert A. Heinlein Here is the Caryatid who once held up the weight of the temple now being crushed by the weight of the world , the force of this tragedy is in its repetition , the world's great weight slamming down upon her he was moved to create . ( value on statues like this would be in the many many 10's of millions but never will be for sale ) Paul Gauguin once said: "Ugly may be beautiful but pretty never " Few masterpeices in our world like this :