inted daintily at last with images of
eternal things--

Forever shalt thou love, and she be fair.

101. Quite a different thing from a "cast,"--this work of clay in the
hands of the potter, as it seemed good to the potter to make it. Very
interesting, a cast from life may perhaps be; more interesting, to some
people perhaps, a cast from death;--most modern novels are like
specimens from Lyme Regis, impressions of skeletons in mud.

"Planned rigorously"--I press the conditions again one by one--it must
be, as ever Memphian labyrinth or Norman fortress. Intricacy full of
delicate surprise; covered way in secrecy of accurate purposes, not a
stone useless, nor a word nor an incident thrown away.

"Rounded smoothly"--the wheel of Fortune revolving with it in unfelt
swiftness; like the world, its story rising like the dawn, closing like
the sunset, with its own sweet light for every hour.

"Balanced symmetrically"--having its two sides clearly separate, its war
of good and evil rightly divided. Its figures moving in majestic law of
light and shade.

"Handled handily"--so that, being careful and gentle, you can take easy
grasp of it and all that it contains; a thing given into your hand
henceforth to have and to hold. Comprehensible, not a mass that both
your arms cannot get round; tenable, not a confused pebble heap of which
you can only lift one pebble at a time.

"Lipped softly"--full of kindness and comfort: the Keats line indeed the
perpetual message of it--"For ever shalt thou love, and she be fair."
All beautiful fiction is of the Madonna, whether the Virgin of Athens or
of Judah--Pan-Athenaic always.

And all foul fiction is _leze majeste_ to the Madonna and to womanhood.
For indeed the great fiction of every human life is the shaping of its
Love, with due prudence, due imagination, due persistence and perfection
from the beginning of its story to the end; for every human soul, its
Palladium. And it follows that all right imaginative work is beautiful,
which is a practical and brief law concerning it. All frightful things
are either foolish, or sick, visits of frenzy, or pollutions of plague.

102. Taking thus the Greek vase at its best time, for the symbol of fair
fiction: of foul, you may find in the great entrance-room of the Louvre,
filled with the luxurious _orfevrerie_ of the sixteenth century, types
perfect and innumerable: Satyrs carved in serpentine, Gorgons platted in
gold, Furies with eyes of rub