To this I will proceed; please to give me
your very best attention:
'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has
learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes
toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and
this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature which
in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and
waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at
one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in
another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to
others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the
bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any
other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in
any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting,
which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted
to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.
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