"Beauty"

'If I told you you had a beautiful body,' Groucho Marx once jokingly asked, 'would you hold it against me?' And phrases like 'small is beautiful', 'age before beauty', 'beauty spot' and 'beauty 'sleep'’ are also idiomatic sayings we sometimes use .

But what is beauty? Certainly not what Bessie Braddock, MP, accused Winston Churchill of, he being somewhat drunk one day in the House of Commons; to which he aptly replied, 'Bessie, you're ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober!'

As the years go by, we make ourselves a certain kind of face -or beauty. You can always tell what a worried person looks like by the expression on his, or her, face. Worry can leave its mark on a face, etched upon the forehead.

Many an attractive face can be spoilt by discontentment. A friend of mine used to say, 'If you have a pain in the neck, thank God you're not a giraffe!'

There are some who are resentful against life, against others and against God. They live life in the conviction that they have never had a square deal from anything or anyone.

But there are those who're always smiling. 'A happy man,' said Robert Louis Stevenson, 'is a better thing to find than a five pound note.'

So let me leave you with a few truisms on the subject of beauty:

'Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God' -Jean Anouilh.

'When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty' -Kahlil Gibran.

'Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old' -Kranz Kafka.

'Let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God's sight' - 1 Peter.

That's what beauty can be and do.