Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

Forster’s remark suggests that what is dismissed as “nonsense” (play, whimsy, irrationality, fantasy, or linguistic excess) can be intimately tied to experiences of beauty. Beauty is not always produced by strict logic or sober realism; it may arise from surprise, incongruity, and imaginative freedom—the very qualities that can look nonsensical from a utilitarian standpoint. The quote also hints at an aesthetic defense of art’s non-instrumental elements: the seemingly pointless or absurd can open perception, loosen conventional categories, and make room for emotional or spiritual resonance. In this view, nonsense is not the enemy of meaning but one of beauty’s pathways.