DOI Artikel:
Beerbohm, Max: A defence of cosmetics
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20196#0071
A Defence of Cosmetics
By Max Beerbohm
ay, but it is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once
IN more in the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe
at her return, let them not say, "We have come into evil times,"
and be all for resistance, reformation or angry cavilling. For did
the king's sceptre send the sea retrograde, or the wand of the
sorcerer avail to turn the sun from its old course ? And what
man or what number of men ever stayed that reiterated process by
which the cities of this World grow, are very streng, fail and grow
again ? Indeed, indeed, there is charm in every period, and only
fools and flutterpates do not seek reverently for what is charming
in their own day. No martyrdom, however fine, nor satire, how-
ever splendidly bitter, has changed by a little tittle the known
tendency of things. It is the times that can perfect us, not we
the times, and so let all of us wisely acquiesce. Like the little
wired marionettes, let us acquiesce in the dance.
For behold ! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day
of sancta simplicitas is quite ended. The old signs are here and
the portents to warn the seer of life that we are ripe for a new
epoch of artifice. Are not inen rattling the dice-box and ladie!
dipping their fingers in the rouge-pots ? At Rome, in the keenesl
time of her degringolade, when there was gambling even in the holy
temples,
By Max Beerbohm
ay, but it is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once
IN more in the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe
at her return, let them not say, "We have come into evil times,"
and be all for resistance, reformation or angry cavilling. For did
the king's sceptre send the sea retrograde, or the wand of the
sorcerer avail to turn the sun from its old course ? And what
man or what number of men ever stayed that reiterated process by
which the cities of this World grow, are very streng, fail and grow
again ? Indeed, indeed, there is charm in every period, and only
fools and flutterpates do not seek reverently for what is charming
in their own day. No martyrdom, however fine, nor satire, how-
ever splendidly bitter, has changed by a little tittle the known
tendency of things. It is the times that can perfect us, not we
the times, and so let all of us wisely acquiesce. Like the little
wired marionettes, let us acquiesce in the dance.
For behold ! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day
of sancta simplicitas is quite ended. The old signs are here and
the portents to warn the seer of life that we are ripe for a new
epoch of artifice. Are not inen rattling the dice-box and ladie!
dipping their fingers in the rouge-pots ? At Rome, in the keenesl
time of her degringolade, when there was gambling even in the holy
temples,