‘Art springs straight out of the rite, and her first outward leap is the image of the god.’—Jane Harrison.
Some years later a troupe of wits, in quest of the ‘crotesque,’ were visiting the well-known lunatic asylum—‘les petites maisons.’
‘And now for the Pseudo-Sappho!’ cried one. ‘She, all said, is by far the most delicious.’
They made their way to where a woman sat smiling affably. She greeted them as a queen her courtiers.
‘Well, Alcinthe. Mignonne has been drooping since you were here, and cooing that all the doves have left the Royaume de Tendre. Where is dear Théodite? Ma chère, I protest that he is the king of les honnêtes gens.’
The wits laughed delightedly. Suddenly one had an idea.
‘Did not the ancients hold that in time the worshipper became the god? Surely we have here a proof that their belief was well founded. And if the worshipper becomes the god then should not also the metamorphosis of the lover into his mistress—Céladon into Astrée, Cyrus into Mandane—be the truly gallant ending of a “roman”?’
He drew out his tablets,—
‘I must make a note of that, and fashion it into an epigram for Sappho.’
FOOTNOTES
[1] Les petites maisons, a group of buildings, used among other things as a lunatic asylum.
[2] As only Duchesses were privileged to sit in the Queen’s presence, to say that some one had le tabouret chez la reine meant that they were a Duchess.
[3] Neuf-germain was notorious as the worst poet of his day.
[4] The great seventeenth century herald.
GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.
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