Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/211

Rh Just as this elusive beauty prevails, the song, or lyric, will endure. Art is in truth the victress when she fulfils Ruskin's demand and is able "to stay what is fleeting, and to enlighten what is incomprehensible; to incorporate the things that have no measure, and immortalize the things that have no duration." And yet, recognizing her subtle paradoxy, and if asked to name one suggested feeling which more than others seems allied with Charm and likely to perpetuate its expression (for I can name only one to-day), I select that which dwells not upon continuance, but upon—our perishableness. Think of it, and you Most fair because most fleeting. will see that Evanescence is an unfailing source of charm. Something exquisite attaches to our sense of it. The appeal which a delicate and fragile thing of beauty makes to us depends as much upon its peril as upon its rarity. In the fulness of life we may have other things as fair and cherished; but that one individuality, that grace and sweetness, cannot be repeated. In time we must say of it:—

We marvel at the indestructible gem, but love the flower for its share in our own doom. If the violet, the rose-gerardia, the yellow jasmine, were unfading, imperishable, what would their worth be? Mimic them exactly in wax, reproduce even their fragrance,