VIII 



BEFORE BEAUTY 



LJEFOEE genius is manliness, and before beauty 

 -*— ^ is power. The Eussian novelist and poet, Tur- 

 genieff, scattered all through whose works you will 

 find unmistakable traits of greatness, makes one of 

 his characters say, speaking of beauty, "The old 

 masters, — they never hunted after it; it comes of 

 itself into their compositions, God knows whence, 

 from heaven or elsewhere. The whole world be- 

 longed to them, but we are unable to clasp its broad 

 spaces; our arms are too short." 



From the same depth of insight come these lines 

 from "Leaves of Grass," apropos of true poems: — 



" They do not seek beauty — they are sought ; 

 Forever touching them, or close upon them, follows beauty, 

 longing, fain, love-sick." 



The Eoman was perhaps the first to separate 

 beauty from use, and pursue it as ornament merely. 

 He built his grand edifice, — its piers, its vaults, its 

 walls of brick and concrete, — and then gave it a 

 marble envelope copied from the Greek architecture. 

 The latter could be stripped away, as in many cases 

 it was by the hand of time, and leave the essentials 



