Page:Ideas of Good and Evil, Yeats, 1903.djvu/196

Ideas of Good and Evil. lost in pattern, may compel the canvas or paper to become itself a symbol of some not indefinite because unsearchable essence; for is not the Bacchus and Ariadne of Titian a talisman as powerfully charged with intellectual virtue as though it were a jewel-studded door of the city seen on Patmos?

To cover the imperishable lineaments of beauty with shadows and reflected lights was to fall into the power of his 'Vala,' the indolent fascination of nature, the woman divinity who is so often described in 'the prophetic books' as 'sweet pestilence,' and whose children weave webs to take the souls of men; but there was yet a more lamentable chance, for nature has also a 'masculine portion' or 'spectre' which kills instead of merely hiding, and is continually at war with inspiration. To 'generalize' forms and shadows, to 'smooth out' spaces and lines in obedience to 'laws of composition,' and of painting; founded, 186