“I suspect,” said I, “that that is what, in a dim and trivial way, people mean when they speak of So-and-So looking ‘interesting’—because they look sad or even only ill.”
“No doubt. And, curious as it may sound, I don’t think we are ever quite satisfied with happiness—not, at all events, till we have known sorrow. Till then, in our happiest hours, we seem to be unconsciously waiting for sorrow. Perhaps that is because we instinctively feel that the rarest forms of joy can only be ours on the conditions of sorrow. Intense, complete joy is only possible to the sorrowful temperament ... to the nature sensitive to the sorrow that lives in all beautiful things....”
“To the opal temperament,” said I. The Sphinx smiled and continued:
“There again is another mystery. Why does sadness seem to lie at the heart of all beauty? Truth and Beauty seem indeed to be one in sadness. All the rarest types of beauty have something sad about them, some tragic look, or enigmatic wistfulness of expression, at the least a touch of loneliness. The gayest music can never be quite happy. Indeed, one might almost say that two qualities only are necessary to the highest beauty—strangeness and sadness: perhaps we might say only one and call it world-strangeness; a look of another world than ours, a look of spiritual exile. Perhaps there is the secret of beauty—sadness. Beauty is an exile in this world, a fallen spirit, and, whatever her embodiment, be it a face, a flower, or a gem, it carries with it always its look of exile.”
“Thus, again,” said I, smiling, “we see why opals are more beautiful than diamonds. The diamond is the stone of this world. It has the prosperous, contented look of that brilliant, unmysterious happiness which comes of good health and a bank account. There is no sadness at the cold heart of the diamond—just as there is no sadness in this glass of champagne, and therefore no appeal to the imagination, as with the sad distinguished wines. I doubt if people who wear opals should drink champagne.”
“Ah! but you see I wear diamonds, too,” laughed the Sphinx.
“Yes, there you are. Always the best of both worlds....”
“True,” said the Sphinx sadly, “but the best is only in one of them....”
“Truth fully now,” I asked, “are you quite sure in which?”
The Sphinx refused to commit herself, but “My opals know,” she answered, musingly turning them to the light.