Letters About the Good

“When I imagine the readers of my letters, I picture friends. Letters to friends allow me to write simply. First I write about the goal and meaning of life, about the beauty of behavior— and then I move on to the beauty of the world around us, to the beauty revealed to us in works of art. I do this because, in order to perceive beauty, the person who receives it must be inwardly beautiful as well—deep, standing on the right life positions. Try holding a binocular in trembling hands—you won’t see anything” (D. S. Likhachev).