the rose-window bearing the cross. The
five-leaved rose indicated the love of GOD for Man, as set
forth by His five wounds; while the eight-leaved typified that of the
believer for the Lord. The Rose also emblemed the Virgin Mary, and from
her was reflected through countless works of art and many legends, all
of which are 'tenderly beautiful,' and, it may be added, generally
rather silly--as, for instance, that of the holy friar Josbert of Doel,
who sang daily five hymns in honor of the Virgin; in reward of which,
immediately after his death, there grew from his mouth, ears, and
nostrils, five roses, each marked with the words of a hymn. It has been
usual to say much, of late years, of the 'child-like and earnest,'
'tender and trusting' spirit which inspired these saintly legends, and
to praise with them the morbid delicacy of a Fra Angelico. Believe me,
reader, when I say that no vigorous and healthy mind ever passed through
a period of adoration for and cultivation of mediaeval Roman Catholic
Art, who did not eventually see that this _naive_ and innocent
art-expression of the foulest, darkest, and most oppressive stage of
history, had precisely the same foundation in truth as the love of the
French court during the days of the Regency for a shepherd's life and
child-like rural pleasures. A wicked and degraded age seeks for relief
in contemplating its opposite; a healthy one--like the Greek--glories in
itself, and strives to raise self to the highest standard of truth and
beauty. None of the symbolisms of the middle ages grew directly from
_Nature_--it was based on second-hand reveries, and on emblems from
which all juice and life had been drained ages before in the East.

Yes--look at the beautiful Rose, radiant with dewdrops, ruddy in the
morning light, or dreamily lovely, with the moonbeams melting through
her moon-shaped petals. Unchanged since that primeval age when she was a
living idol--a visible and blest presence of the Great Goddess of beauty
and love--whether as Astarte or Ma Nerf Baaltis, Ashtaroth or Venus. Let
her breathe in her fragrance of the far times when millions in a strange
and busy age now forgotten thronged rose-garlanded to the temples; when,
bearing roses, they gathered to wild worship at the Feast of the New
Moon, under shady groves or in picturesque high places among the ancient
rocks. Rose-breathing, rose-perfumed, amid sweetest music and black
Assyrian eyes, in the gliding dance under thou