Love， beauty， adversity and death in life

English Renaissance is an era for literal titans. Among them， Francis Bacon impressed me the most. Some philosopher ideas of him attract me. So I read his “the Essays of Bacon”， the book is worthy of reading over and over again. It is a crystallization of his wisdom. I would like to analyze his book on three major aspects： Love， Beauty， and Death.

1. Of love

It seems in Bacons views that love could swallow peoples reason of mind and love is never fair for the preference has nothing to fear and stays in a higher position. Beyond all question， people love themselves more than others， there is no Romeo and Juliet-style romance in real life. Love is not that perfect and sweet， it has many defects. It contains all positive and negative elements in humanity. With exposing its true look， love is not as touching as people imagined.

Then why so many people are pursuing love？ Because of the yearning and the uncertainty included in it. We are attracted by someone for some traits that we are keen on. Along with our growth， the traits we like update in every stage of our lives. This emotion changes us into an unknown one stays silently for years inside us， the unreasonable one. All things become dubious， as well as our moods. To get an indeterminate result， we put down our pride and timidity， but hold sincerity in our hands. The uncertain direction of the relation makes love mysterious.

Love sometimes brings people pain of losing. Nevertheless， on the premise of the dangerousness of it， love is you choosing to stand with me to face the difficulties and to shoulder the responsibilities when you have one thousand other choices to other people.

2. Of beauty

It seems that a person with a beautiful appearance is more popular nowadays. This tendency makes a mass of girls hide under the mask of making up，showing the glamorous look and detest who they really are. Making up， Adjusting photos with Photoshop and facelift are not something wrong，these are just different life styles. But before this， the first thing you should do is accepting yourself.

Only in this situation， you will not feel losing yourself， or else fell the sense of inferiority and uneasy without these outside things. Beautiful people have a beautiful autumn. Beauty is a state， it is composure and confidence， it is a life style and something naturally shines through. It holds energy in it. Without an exact definition， however， nobody could ignore its existence. Beauty is as summer fruits， which are easy to corrupt， and cannot last. So combine it with virtues， only in this way can beauty last longer and blush the vice.

3. Of death

Bacon stood on the side that death is the most terrible thing in the world， it is also an ending to ones life， opens the gate to good fame， and extinguishes envy.

For me， death pushes one to be a person different from everyone. Death exists as a deadline of the course in our lives， urging us to cherish every single second. Its most momentous function is to warn people not to face too awkwardly. Death is more serious than an alarm bell， crueler than a stimulus and more profound than an ending.

People chase love， beauty and research adversity deeply because there are too many thing we could not control which were decided by others， by circumstance， by life and by nature. What we could control is just a little bit things， these things build up our definitions. Death makes us treat these little bit things more earnest. We do not know who we are without them， we do not know the difference among every single person in the universe.

Through the analysis of these three parts in Bacons “Essays of Bacon”， I was taken to a new level of re-examining the world. Bacon did not have a good reputation at his time， his experience was not plain sailing. As Alexander pope said： “If parts allure thee， think how Bacon shined， the wisest， brightest， meanest of mankind.” However， this unpleasant experience prompted him to dig in the way of literature and philosopher.

I do not care what mistakes had Bacon done， it is his thoughts that impresses me. If the sexiest organ of human beings is brain， I have to say， Bacon had a sexy brain. His point of views was so deep that I had never gone that far in the journey of my consideration until I read his book. His thoughts inspired me to think and took me to the level that I never had been. I started to survey issues in a wider view. Taking reader to a higher level， this must be one of goals of Bacon.

【作者簡介】劉子璇，河北大學外國語學院。