Vanishing Roads and Other Essays

s own book of martyrs. The religion of beauty is no exception. Far from it. For most other religions, however they may have differed among themselves, have

mes to be written, it will, doubtless, be the Christian persecutions of beauty that will bulk largest in t

garments, so conspicuous a challenge to the musty, outworn, proprieties to frown upon her all they please. From the humblest shop-girl to the greatest lady, there is apparent an intention to be beautiful, sweet maid, and let who will be hum-drum, at whatever cost, by whatever means. This, of course, at all periods, has been woman's chief thought, but till recently, in our times, she has more or less affected a certain secrecy in her intention. She has hinted rather than fully expressed it, as though fearing a certain flagrancy in too public an exhibition of her enchantments. It has hardly seemed proper to her heretofore to be as beautiful in the public gaze as in the sanctuary of her boudoir. But now, bless you, she has no such misgivings, and the flower-like eff

hat never c

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rustle of t

per of t

ss of their

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hat never c

d some stern priests thunder from the pulpit of worldly vanities and the wrath to come. Indeed, I can well imagine in the near future some modern Savonarola presiding over a new Bonfire of Vanities in Madison Square, on which, to the droning of Moody and Sankey's hymns, shall be cast all the fascinating Parisian creations, the puffs and rats, the powder and the rouge, the darling stockings, and all such concomitant bewitcheries that today make Manhattan a veritable Isle of Circe, all to g

and apparently so perishable, are usually represented as taking shapes of beguiling loveliness-lamias, loreleis, wood nymphs, and witches with blue flowers for their eyes. Lurking in its most innocent forms, the grim ascetic has affected to find a leaven of concupiscence, and whenever any reformation is afoot, it is always beauty that is made the first victim, whether it take the form of a statue, a stained-

wn the beautiful calm gods and goddesses from their pedestals, and breaking their exquisite marble limbs with brutish mallets, it was not, we may be sure, of the danger to their precious souls they were thinking, but of their patrician masters who had worshipped these fair images, and paid great sums to famous sculptors for such adornment of their sanctuaries. Perhaps it was huma

her

led in a cre

anding on this

hat would make

Proteus rising

iton blow his

which glory and loveliness were thus surely passing away. Other priests, as we know, more fortunate than he, had forewarnings of such impending sacrilege, and were able to anticipate the mob, and bury their beautiful images in safe and secret places, there to await, after the lapse of twelve centuries, the glorious resurrection of the Renaissance. A resurrection, however, by no means free from danger, even in that resplendent dawn of intelligence; for Christianity was still the enemy of beauty, save in the Vatican, and the ignorant priest of the remote village where the spade of the peasant had revealed the sleeping marble was certain to declare the beautiful image an evil spirit, and have it broken up forthwith and ground for morta

is come

as upo

and personal adornments. Gaiety became penal, and a happy heart or a beautiful smile was of the devil,-something like hanging matters-but happy hearts and beautiful smiles must have been rare things in England during the Puritan C

indows ri

dim religi

y, particularly in New England, where if the sculptured images of goddess and nymph are not exactly broken to pieces by the populace, it is from no goodwill towards them, but rather from an ingrained reverenc

me reason there must surely be. Such instinctive feelings, on so broad a scale, are not accidental. And

and the limitations and necessities of the various societies that compose it. The spiritual element, the really important part of religion, has no concern with Time and Space, temporary mundan

religion designed to work hand in hand with a given state of society, making for the preservation of such laws and manners and customs as are best fitted to make that society a success here and now, a worldly success in the best sense of the term. Mohammedanism is a similar religion calculated for the needs of a different society. Whatever the words or intentions of the founders of such religions, their kingdoms are essentially of this world. They are not mystic, or spiritual, or in anyway concerned with infinite and eternal things. Their business is the moral

icularly our young men-must be guarded against her, for her beauty sets us adream, prevents our doing our day's work, makes us forget the soulless occupations in which we wither away our lives. The man who loves beauty will never be mayor of his city, or even sit on the Board of Aldermen. Nor is he likely to own a railroad, or be a captain of industry. Nor will he marry, for her money, a woman he does not love. The face of beauty makes all such achievements seem small and absurd. Such so-called successes seem to him the dreariest forms of failure. In short, Beauty has made him divinely discontented with the limited human

: though the w

no voice but the vo

too dark for dim

daisies fair blo

held shadows, and t

a veil over all

not tremble, their f

ot weary, the fe

ese eyes of the l

and afar from "all the uses of the world." Therefore, to them also it brings the thrill of a different and nobler fear-the thrill of the mortal in presence of the immortal. A strange feeling of destiny seems to come over us as we first look into the beautiful face we were born to love. It seems veritably an apparition from another and lovelier world, to which it summons us to go with it. That is what we mean when we say that Love and Death are one; for Death, to the thought of Love, is but one of the gates to that other world, a gate to which we instinctively feel Love has the key. That surely is the mea

ke and fo

old hill