There is a continual and godlike longing to embody these
elusive phantoms of Beauty. But the immortal songs which remain unsung,
the exquisite idyls which gasp for words, the bewildering and restless
imagery which seeks in vain the eternal repose of marble or of
canvas,--while these confess the affectionate and divine desires of
humanity, they prove how few there are to whom it is given to learn the
great lesson of Creation. When one arises among us, who, like Pygmalion,
makes no useless appeal to the Goddess of Beauty for the gift of life
for his Ideal, and who creates as he was created, we cherish him as a
great interpreter of human love. We call him poet, composer, artist, and
speak of him reverently as _Master_. We say that his lips have been wet
with dews of Hybla,--that, like the sage of Crotona, he has heard the
music of the spheres,--that he comes to us, another Numa, radiant and
inspired from the kisses of Egeria.
Thus, as infinite Love begets infinite Beauty, so does infinite Beauty
reflect into finite perceptions that image of its divine parentage which
the antique world worshipped under the personification of Astarte,
Aphrodite, Venus, and recognized as the _great creative principle_ lying
at the root of all high Art.
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