DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8176#0014
8
Bacchanal of London streets has been caught in a trap of unmistakable wit and beauty that is a signal testimony to the
subtlety of art, but the jolly Satyr and ranging Meenad are gayer witnesses to the power of the god.
In our land it is now some time since the Lady banished Comus. Romance and Revel are not received notes in our
religion, and a kind of haughty shyness is the mark of our manners. To find the image of a people less ashamed of life, and
who could yet marry grace and dignity with their mirth, we must burrow in Greek graves, and it is a pious kind of sacrilege to
steal from the dead housekeeper those brittle relics of the jolly prime of the world. The wine and the oil are dry, and the cup
is often broken, but the laughter and the poetry still flicker on its sides. Tomb has delivered them to museum, and it is time
that the book-worm should not be the only heir of his brother.
D. S. M.
Bacchanal of London streets has been caught in a trap of unmistakable wit and beauty that is a signal testimony to the
subtlety of art, but the jolly Satyr and ranging Meenad are gayer witnesses to the power of the god.
In our land it is now some time since the Lady banished Comus. Romance and Revel are not received notes in our
religion, and a kind of haughty shyness is the mark of our manners. To find the image of a people less ashamed of life, and
who could yet marry grace and dignity with their mirth, we must burrow in Greek graves, and it is a pious kind of sacrilege to
steal from the dead housekeeper those brittle relics of the jolly prime of the world. The wine and the oil are dry, and the cup
is often broken, but the laughter and the poetry still flicker on its sides. Tomb has delivered them to museum, and it is time
that the book-worm should not be the only heir of his brother.
D. S. M.