They rectify many
naif blunders and so make the whole narrative more intelligible, but
they still render most of the tropes of the original literally.

These tropes are not the substance of Holy Writ; they are simply its
color. In the same way mere tone-color is not the substance of a musical
composition. Beethoven's Eighth Symphony is just as great a work, in all
its essentials, in a four-hand piano arrangement as in the original
score. Every harmonic and melodic idea of the composer is there; one can
trace just as clearly the subtle processes of his mind; every step in
the working out of the materials is just as plain. True enough, there
are orchestral compositions of which this cannot be reasonably said;
their color is so much more important than their form that when one
takes away the former the latter almost ceases to exist. But I doubt
that many competent critics would argue that they belong to the first
rank. Form, after all, is the important thing. It is design that counts,
not decoration--design and organization. The pillars of a musical
masterpiece are like the pillars of the Parthenon; they are almost as
beautiful bleached white as they were in all their original hues.

XXVIII

A FOOTNOTE ON THE DUEL OF SEX

If I were a woman I should want to be a blonde, with golden, silky hair,
pink cheeks and sky-blue eyes. It would not bother me to think that this
color scheme was mistaken by the world for a flaunting badge of
stupidity; I would have a better arm in my arsenal than mere
intelligence; I would get a husband by easy surrender while the
brunettes attempted it vainly by frontal assault.

Men are not easily taken by frontal assault; it is only strategem that
can quickly knock them down. To be a blonde, pink, soft and delicate, is
to be a strategem. It is to be a ruse, a feint, an ambush. It is to
fight under the Red Cross flag. A man sees nothing alert and designing
in those pale, crystalline eyes; he sees only something helpless,
childish, weak; something that calls to his compassion; something that
appeals powerfully to his conceit in his own strength. And so he is
taken before he knows that there is a war. He lifts his portcullis in
Christian charity--and the enemy is in his citadel.

The brunette can make no such stealthy and sure attack. No matter how
subtle her art, she can never hope to quite conceal her intent. Her eyes
give her away. They flash and glitter. They have depths. They draw th