Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/178

148 about mere beauty,—I am convinced that they simply are in rebellion against hackneyed standards. They have adopted some fresh, and therefore welcome, notion as to what is attractive. This they have given a new name, to distinguish it from an established and too familiar standard. They are unwittingly wooing beauty in a new dress,—the same goddess, with more disguises than Venus Mater. Some day they will recognize her, et vera incessu patuit dea, and again be taught that she never permits her suitors to escape. She has the secret of keeping them loyal in spite of themselves. This belief that they are free is a charm by which she lures them to her unknown haunts, rewarding them with the delight of discovery, or ironically permitting them to set up claims for invention. One may even compare beauty to the wise and charming wife who encourages a fickle husband's attentions at a masquerade. She has a thousand graces and coquetries. At last the masks are removed. "What, is it you? And still superior to all others!" He needs must worship her more than ever, and own that none can rival her adorable and "infinite variety."

No; the only consistent revolt is on the part of A logical but purely Berkeleian theory. those who declare that she has no real existence,—that beauty is a chimera. Let me confess at once that I am not in their ranks. I doubt whether any artist, or any thinker who honestly loves art and has an instinct for it,