"
"And do you call that kind of thing new?" said Ideala. "I should say it
was a fine compound of all the poems of the kind, and several other
kinds, that have ever been written, with a dash of the peculiarly
refined immorality of our own times, from which nothing is sacred;
thrown in to make weight. Such writing,
Like a new disease, unknown to men,
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
. . . . . . . . . . . and saps
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young.
It is the feeling of the day accurately defined. Nobody sighs for love
and peace now. The cry is for the indulgence of some fiery passion for
an hour, and then, perdition!--if you like--since that is the
recognised price of it."
"Our loves are more intense than they used to be," said the sculptor,
sighing.
"Love!" Ideala answered. "Oh, do not desecrate 'the eternal God-word,
love!' There is little enough of that in the business that goes by its
name now-a-days. I am a lady--I cannot use the right word. But it is
none the less the thing I mean because it calls blasphemously on God
Almighty to help it to fulfil itself.
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