From antiquity to the present, many have written on the subject of beauty, but precious few have done so with the capacity to themselves to write beautifully. The Sense of Beauty is that rare exception. This remarkable early work of the great American philosopher, George Santayana, features a quality of prose that is as wondrous as what he had to say. Indeed, his summation remains a flawless classical statement. "Beauty seems to be the clearest manifestation of perfection, and the best evidence of its possibility. If perfection is, as it should be, the ultimate justification of being, we may understand the ground of the moral dignity of beauty. Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good."