Moreover, the new access to the Classics added to all this the direct influence of the Platonic philosophy which now played, through Spenser and his circle, upon the thought and feeling of the Elizabethan age. A careful reading of Spenser’s four hymns to _Love_, _Beauty_, _Heavenly Love_, and _Heavenly Beauty_ will throw much light on the subsequent semantic history of the title words and of many others. We find in them the Platonic antithesis between the Eternal and its for-ever-changing outward garment: For that same goodly hew of white and red, With which the cheekes are sprinckled, shall decay, And those sweete rosy leaves so fairely spread Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away To that they were, even to corrupted clay. That golden wyre, those sparckling stars so bright Shall turne to dust, and loose their goodly light. But that faire lampe, from whose celestial ray That light proceedes, which kindleth lovers’ fire, Shall never be extinguisht nor decay, But when the vitall spirits doe expyre, Unto her native planet shall retyre, For it is heavenly borne and can not die, Being a parcell of the purest skie. and the conception of contemplation rising, through love, from the one to the other, as in For love is Lord of truth and loialtie, Lifting himselfe out of the lowly dust, On golden plumes up to the purest skie.... or: But they which love indeede, look otherwise, With pure regard and spotless true intent, Drawing out of the object of their eyes A more refyned forme, which they present Unto their minde.... until finally, in the _Hymne of Heavenly Beauty_, Spenser reveals the source of his faith: Faire is the heaven, where happy soules have place, In full enjoyment of felicitie.... More faire is that where those _Idees_ on hie, Enraunged be, which _Plato_ so admyred, And pure _Intelligences_ from God inspyred. When we recall the great influence which Spenser’s poetry has exerted on English poets who have lived and written since his day, we can clearly see how the two kinds of Platonism—a direct Platonism, and a Platonism long ago transmuted and worked right down into the emotions of common people by the passionate Christianity of the Dark and Middle Ages—combined to beget the infinite suggestiveness which is now contained in such words as _love_ and _beauty_. Let us remember, then, that every time we abuse these terms, or use them too lightly, we are draining them of their power; every time a society journalist or a film producer exploits this vast suggestiveness to tickle a vanity or dignify a lust, he is squandering a great pile of spiritual capital which has been laid up by centuries of weary effort.