THE ART OF THE WORLD.

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 80

THE ART OF THE WORLD.

By L. E. F. , To live and die^with "purpose, and life fulfilled, itliere are but two things — Love and Suffering •, but in fheir attainment the toillions stumble and fall from day to toight. For the dull rose-red of the sunset, the lying glory of. the moon — a splendid dead thing in which nothing . living should place it 3 trust— blend in the soul with fata? allurement of colour and harmony. Hs whom the sunset deceives swims in an opium-trance of gracious warmth and -serenity — a trance of languorous limbs, of jdeadened sense, and distant delicious 'laughter mingling with the scent and Capture of an eternity of flowers'. And jfohen the. leturn of the soul, 'the black jbitter awakening, the hard light in" hopeless eyes — for the sun has set an hour ago kind the night alone remains — the '.'nfov->4giting,/night;"'And-h« 'wnoahas listened* Ho: "the soft and" soothing: voices of the moon: her perfect light slides into his Ibeart and makes 1 it a6";cold,:as bright, as lifeless as her own, and henceforth, a thing, mute anft' dead, -hut beautiful to hw soul, once^ had loved the -glow and speech' of 1 life;- nay ,~ darker still, for- soon. •khe moon and- her lie pass to their -death." and the "light is -'gone, but, the night remains'. - So is the soul blinded and crushed by the rich and the pale perfection of the sunsst gleam and her twin sister, Diana of the false and virgin lips. Love and Suffering,' They are^the keynot© of the world, comprehension imperisnabie, and for ever. They are indivisible, and without them Art is dead and has no soul. Love is the great Piteous Gift: a perfect Rose, in. whose heaSrt hides the -dew of a white Nirvana. And. comes with . •it the prescience of an. eternal purpose, Itfhose abode is a Mighty Heart and the petals of the Rose. -And" Suffering, Love's \grey twin sister, -is always with us ; and tier faltering cry through sweet-drawn lips is, '1 am, that you ,may understand," her dwelling place, the -Mighty Heart and the .sordid wonderful* world: . . .* Out of Suffering conies -Love ; but out of Love also comes Suffering," and "Credo, J>omine !" is the cry of the ages. - For we are of -little understanding, and' the body, may not aid the soul ,to. pass behind the Veil. No life is without Suffering ; but (Love also awaits acceptance: and Art, (pure and born of beauty, is the path, of our acceptance. Art is the expression of , Love and Suffering, the mighty heart-beat &f; the world- ascending to the^lmmaculate Wonder of the stars; jr.'-.' " „