"HE THAT TOLD IT LATER."

Otago Witness, Issue 3395, 9 April 1919, Page 53

"HE THAT TOLD IT LATER."

By Jessie Mackay. • And be that told the tale In older times Bays that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonom But he that told it later Bays Lynette. Tennyson. This is the returning century of the cosmio imagery we call mysticism, which is at Jeast as old as the Greek sages, if pot what every true mystic claims for his faith—that is, to be as old as the Pharaohs from whom the Greek sages learned. In the Dark Ages, or at least the earlier part 'of them, mysticism flourished both among the Christian Gnostics and the ; Neo-Platonic heathen, of whom Hypatia was the famed exponent in the fifth century. The 400 years following, which set the yoke of the northern Teuton firmly on the neck of the former lords of Europe, were filled with nothing but the clash of arms, and the comparative stability had to be reached in the Middle Ages ere the hidden river of mysticism revealed itself once more in the doctrines of the Rosicrucians and the Kabbalish. The Reformation tolerated nothing of allegory or mysticism, and the whirr of the Industrial Revolution 'completed, the breach between ideality and crystallised, creed. Now, when the literalness of the accepted canon, theological and social, has come to be questioned, mysticism has revived once more. The Avar has killed many papers and many magazines. But one is glad to see that finely-edited and beautifully-repro-duced annual, "Bibby's," has not only survived, but taken on a new aim in striving to reconcile Capital and Labour. The cover-picture gives the note in a speakingly modern fashion. Knowledge draws the curtain from the hidden truth that governs human welfare. Capital and Labour, typified in a broad-browed, handsome king of industry and an eager, alert young workman, stand electrified at the tardy discovery that they have no true interest apart from each other. It is not, however, the social 'side of art or letterpress, good as they are, that I would speak of at present, but one or two of the allegorical pictures and their exposition. And when "allegory" is said, it is not the obvious and contemporary symbolism which takes mystic shape in these two characteristic studies by G. F. Watts—the stern, womanrfaced "Dweller in the Innermost," consciencerayed and terribly . -watchful, against a tawny orange ground!, her eyes burning with a cold blue fire out of the veils that dim her outlines, nor yet that strange Hindu-like 5 picture, "The All-Pervading," a Vision of the Divine Motherhood brooding over a sphere in her hands. It is the old Greek stories that were told in lieu of Scripture miljenniums ago that the modern symbolist now claims for his field on lines that little ran with the thought of gay, epicurean lonia when these were indeed her fairyland and her Bible. Take this glorious "Circe" of Romney. It is one of the loveliest varients of lovely Lady Hamilton, Nelson's Lady Hamilton that Romney's faithful brush has bequeathed to us—this pureeyed Circe, seemly, sweet, and grave, whose uplifted hand of power holds the beast natures around her in obedient thrall. Circe has from all ages been an allegory of sense indulged and manhood forfeited. But this beautiful enchantress is no destroyer of the souh "He Who Tells the Story Later" is truly justified, in face of this angelic arbiter of lower destinies, in regarding her own salvation secured, her own being purified, her own power supreme over these, lower forms whose destiny, or rather development, delivered them to the judgment of those pure eyes and this stern monition, till they rise from the slough into newness of life. But what -would Alcibiades have made of such a Circe? Here is the beautiful "Andromeda" of Lord Leighton—one of the oldest tales in existence, as our symbolist reminds us—the old, all but universal dragon—myth of the ancient peoples. We know that the solar myth has claimed Perseus for its own, as it has claimed most heroes of the prince. Andromeda, bound to her rock and swooning in terror, is here acclaimed as something subtler still than a Dawn or a Gloam Maiden. Philology is made to indicate the splendid pair—rescuer and rescued. Perseus, we are told, is from "pur," fire, and means the human intellect at a most advanced stage, while Andromeda means "ruler or helper of man," signifying the will or energy, still bound to the rock of earthly nature till rescued from the dragpn or lower desire by the trained intellect, itself now a part of the pure flame behind all life. Where this spirit rescues the will from slavery to sense, they are wedded indeed, as the old story represents Perseus wedding his Palestinian princess. Andromeda's traditional home was near Joppa. Lastly, we have the etherealised story of Theseus and the Minotaur, based on the picture by W. E. Gladstone Solomon. A Bingularlv beautiful classic background throws up the two central figures in relief. Ariadne kneels in a passion of welcome too near a recent horror of fear to be wholly joyous. Perhaps, too, she sees the cloud o faloofness on the face of the splendid young Athenian prince, even while he still bolds Ariadne's clew in his hand, to which he has owed his life. The doom ictf the poor Cretan princess is already prefigured there. But our learned symbolist does not carry the romance as far as that. He sees that Merios rheans the mind of man, which has good children and evil, even as the gentle and spiritual Ariadne and the monster Minotaur (Mind-Bull), half man, half bull. Theseus, like Perseus, is the god-like soul, determined to conquer the lower self, while the Ariadne is intuition, which saves the high spirit from the animal nature, feeding on man's flesh. Fine-drawn and far-fetched these philosophical abstractions interest the modern mmd. Bnt did they come within %h* ken of old lonia or Athens, who told them as •we tell of Eden and the Flood?