Beauty isolated is terrible and unbearable

• Beauty isolated is terrible and unbearable,
  and the unclouded sight other kills the beholder.
  His only refuge is in insignificant things,
  in labor that keeps the mind from thought,
  and in companionship that gives back to the ego
  some of its former virility. But he who has looked
  long on naked beauty may never return to the world,
  and though he should try, he will find its occupation
  empty and vain, and human intercourse purposeless and futile.
  Alone and lost, he must die on the altar of beauty.
  
  
  .............Everett Ruess