Inseparably linked with evil was beauty--beauty, still a constant rising tumult; soft in Eleanor's voice, in an old song at night, rioting deliriously through life like superimposed waterfalls, half rhythm, half darkness.

Amory knew that every time he had reached toward it longingly it had leered out at him with the grotesque face of evil.

Beauty of great art, beauty of all joy, most of all the beauty of women.
After all, it had too many associations with license and indulgence.
Weak things were often beautiful, weak things were never good.

And in this new loneness of his that had been selected for what greatness he might achieve, beauty must be relative or, itself a harmony, it would make only a discord.
In a sense this gradual renunciation of beauty was the second step after his disillusion had been made complete.

He felt that he was leaving behind him his chance of being a certain type of artist.