He Refutes the Tenets of Western Philosophy By Alluding To Rachel's Beauty

Plato says that Heaven is perfect things, that nothing pure or good exists on earth. We leave the Ideal World when, at our birth, like ants who've briefly flown, we shed our wings. All infants cry, in Shakespeare's view, when first they leave the womb, to find this Vale of Tears is what they must inhabit four score years, dreading the hardship into which they've burst. Our human life, so Seneca would say, is prone to failure, suffering and pain. The only shreds of solace that remain are stoic calm, acceptance of decay. They're wrong, of course, to tend towards this view: but then, my Perfect Girl, they didn't know you.