I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion

'Supposing there is no life everlasting? Think what it means if death is really the end of all things? They've [the nuns] given it all up for nothing. They've been cheated. They're dupes.'

Waddington reflected fir a little while.

'I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, an the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.'

W.S. Maugham, The painted veil (1925), 169-70