I have discovered the definition of Beauty–of my Beauty. It is something ardent and sad, something slightly vague, giving rein to conjecture. I shall, if you wish, apply my ideas to a perceptible object; for example, to the most interesting object to be found in society, to a woman’s face. A lovely and enticing face-a woman’s face, I mean–is something that makes you dream simultaneously, though in some confusion, of sensual pleasure and of sorrow. It conveys a certain melancholy, a weariness, even satiety–and at the same time a contrary idea: an ardour, a desire to live, coupled with a recurrent bitterness, such as might come of privation and despair. 

Baudelaire