Page:Woman in Art.djvu/19

 PART ONE

Development of Woman

CHAPTER I

Did the Why and Wherefore of all the art works and monuments ever find an answer to satisfy your mind? Did it ever occur to you that all that the future can have of the past is only what is preserved in libraries, galleries and museums—with a time-limit on those?

Man's achievements in architecture, mechanics, engineering, have crumbled and will continue to crumble. Look for Babylon; you will find it a pin point on the map—mere undulations on the plains of Shinar. Marvel at the monoliths of Thebes, Baalbec and Nineveh buried under wind-swept deserts. By what means were their ponderous tons lifted to such heights? There is no way to find out, save suggestions from crude pictures cut in stone—a crude art.

Europe is constantly building small sections into the mediaeval cathedrals that are her glory.

As far back as man may penetrate he finds—what? The remains of a prehistoric art. What does that art tell us? It pictures the religion of pre-historic man.

You say he had no religion? You do not know. There was the pressure of it, the longing for it in the undeveloped soul of primitive man. How do we know? Because man is made in the image of his Creator, and the Creator-God is spirit, and man is nothing when his spirit leaves the body. Another answer is because the poets tell us so. Is that not enough? Anthropologists, scientists of whatever name, have delved into enfoldments of earth, have brought to light bones of abnormal development, have matched them bone to bone, have handled many a skull of antediluvian age, with more care and question than did Hamlet's grave digger, but no secret have they yielded from their deep resting place; no word or sign of thought, creed, or achievement of their unknown race, nor hungers of the undeveloped soul.

But to prophets and poets of the past have been granted a deeper insight. With the eye of spirit and enlargement of soul, some have penetrated remote ages that nature has kindly cloaked, have caught and brought to light something invisible, but common to all mankind. 13