wind there comes a cry--a sound
of cymbals and flutes and dancing feet. It is life's last call. You have
one chance left. There is still Indian summer. It is better than
nothing. Hurry and join the music, ere it be too late. For this is the
last call!

When time lets slip a little perfect hour,
Take it, for it will not come again.

VII

THE PERSECUTIONS OF BEAUTY

All religions have periods in their history which are looked back to
with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution, and each
religion has its 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 agreed in fearing beauty, and even in
Greece there were stern sanctuaries and ascetic academes where the white
bosom of Phryne would have pleaded in vain. Christianity has not been
beauty's only enemy, by any means; though, when the Book of Martyrs of
Beauty comes to be written, it will, doubtless, be the Christian
persecutions of beauty that will bulk largest in the record--for the
Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty have been warring creeds
from the beginning.

At the present moment, there is reason to fear, or to rejoice--according
to one's individual leanings--that the Religion of Beauty is gaining
upon its ancient rival; for perhaps never since the Renaissance has
there been such a widespread impulse to assert Beauty and Joy as the
ideals of human life. As evidence one has but to turn one's eyes on the
youth of both sexes, as they rainbow the city thoroughfares with their
laughing, heartless faces, evident children of beauty and joy, "pagan"
to the core of them, however ostensibly Christian their homes and their
country. In our time, at all events, Beauty has never walked the streets
with so frank a radiance, so confident an air of security, and in her
eyes and in her carriage, as in her subtly shaped and subtly scented
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,