THE BEAUTIFUL.
'Tweet!' cried the sparrows, 'it is nothing! It only looks like
something. Tweet! that is the beautiful. Can you make anything of it? I
can't?'
Hans Andersen.
'How exceedingly successful,' observed Queen Mab one day, 'the
Permanent Scarecrows have been!'
'The Permanent Scarecrows?' said the Owl.
The winged and gifted pair had been on another visit to London, and Mab
had found rows on rows of stucco houses, where she had left green
fields, running brooks, and hedges white with may, on the northern side
of the Strand.
'Yes 'said Mab 'you hardly ever see a crow now, where, in my time, the
farmers were so much plagued by the furtive bird. But, as the crows
have been thoroughly frightened off, and as there are now no crops to
protect, I do think they might remove the permanent scarecrows.'
'Your Majesty's meaning,' said the Owl, 'is beginning to dawn on me.
True, in your time there were no statues in London, and the mistake
into which you have fallen is natural. You went away before the great
development of British Art, and British Sculpture, and British worship
of Beauty. The monuments you notice are expressive of our love of
loveliness, our devotion to all that is fair. These objects of which
you complain are not meant to alarm predatory fowls (though well
calculated for that purpose) but to commemorate heroes, often
themselves more or less predatory.'
'Do you mean to tell me?' asked Mab, 'that that big burly scarecrow,
about to mend a gigantic quill with a blunt sword, was a hero?'
'He was indeed,' said the Owl, 'though I admit that you would never
have guessed it from his effigy.'
'And that other scarecrow, all claws and beak, who blocks up the narrow
street where the Dragon worshippers throng? Was _he_ a hero?'
'He is believed by some to be the Dragon himself,' said the Owl; 'but
no one knows for certain, not even the sculptor.'
'And the Barber's Block with the stuffed dog, looking into the Park?'
'He was a poet,' said the Owl, 'and expressed so much contempt for men
that they retorted by that ridiculous caricature. Would you believe it,
English sculptors actually quarrelled among themselves as to who made
that singular and, for its original purpose, most successful
scarecrow!'
'I don't wonder,' remarked the Queen, 'that birds of taste are rare in
the Metropolis, and that, on the Embankment especially, a rook would be
regarded as a kind of prodigy. Nowhere has the manufacture of permanent
scarecrows been conducted with more ingenious success. But tell me, my
accomplished fowl, have Britons any other arts? Long ago the men used
to paint themselves blue, but, as far as I have remarked, the women are
now alone in staining their cheeks with a curious purplish dye and
their locks with ginger colour.'
'Among the Arts,' said the Owl, 'the modern English chiefly excel in
painting. To-morrow, by the way, the shrine of Loveliness begins to
open its gates. The successful worshippers, are admitted to varnish
their offerings to Beauty, while the unsuccessful are sent away in
disgrace, with their sacrifices. Suppose we go and examine this curious
scene.'
'In Polynesia,' replied Mab, 'no well-meant offering is rejected by the
gods.'
'The Polynesian gods,' answered the Owl, 'are too indiscriminate.'
On the next morning any one whose eyes were purged with euphrasy and
rue might have observed an owl and a fairy queen fluttering in the
smoky air above Burlington House. Here a mixed multitude of men and
women, young and old, were thronging about the gates, some laughing,
some lamenting. A few entered with proud and happy steps, bearing
quantities of varnish to the goddess; others sneaked away with pictures
under their arms, or hastily concealed the gifts rejected at the shrine
of Beauty in the hospitable shelter of four-wheeled cabs.
'Let us enter,' said the Owl, 'and behold how wisely the Forty Priests
of Beauty (or the Forty Thieves, as their enemies call them) and the
Thirty Acolytes have arranged the gifts of the faithful.
Lightly the unseen pair fluttered past the servants of Beauty, nobly
attired in gold and scarlet. They found themselves in a series of
stately halls, so covered with pictures in all the hues of the aniline
rainbow, that Queen Mab winked, and suffered from an immortal headache.
'How curious it is,' said Queen Mab, 'that of all the many thousand
offerings only a very few, namely, those hung at a certain height from
the floor, are really visible to any one who is neither a fairy nor a
bird.'
'The pieces which you observe,' remarked the Owl, 'are almost in every
case the work of the Forty Priests of Beauty, of the Thirty Acolytes,
and of their cousins, their sisters, and their aunts. Those other
attempts, almost invisible, as you say, to anyone but a bird or a
fairy, have been produced by other worshippers not yet admitted to the
Holy Band.'
'Then,' asked the Queen, 'are the Forty Priests by far the most expert
in devising objects truly beautiful, and really worthy of the Goddess
of Beauty?'
'On that subject,' said the Owl, 'your Majesty will be able to form an
opinion after you have examined the sacrifices at the shrine.'
Swiftly as Art Critics the winged spectators flew, invisible, round the
galleries, and finally paused, breathless, on the gigantic group of St.
George and the Dragon, then in the Sculpture Room.
'Well, what do you think?' asked the Owl.
'The Forty Priests,' replied Queen Mab, 'are, with few exceptions, men
who seem to have been blinded, perhaps by the Beatific Vision of
Beauty. If the Beatific Vision of Beauty has not blinded them, why are
they and their friends so hopelessly absurd? Why do they have all the
best of the shrine to themselves, while the young worshippers are
consigned to holes and corners, or turned out altogether? Who makes the
Forty the Forty? Does the goddess choose her own Ministers?'
'By no means,' said the Owl, 'they choose themselves. Who else, in the
name of Beauty, would choose them? But you must not think that they are
all blind or stupid; there are some very brilliant exceptions,' and he
pointed triumphantly to the offerings of the High Priest and of five or
six other members of the Fraternity.
'This is all very well, and I am delighted to see it,' said Queen Mab,
'but tell me how the choosing of the Forty and of the Acolytes is
arranged. 'When one of the Forty dies,' replied the Owl, 'which happens
only at very long intervals, for they belong to the race of
Struldbrugs, several worshippers who have become bald, old, nearly
sightless, with other worshippers' still young and strong, are paraded
before the Thirty-nine. And they generally choose the old men, or, if
not, the young men who come from a strange land in the North, where
rain falls always when it is not snowing, and whither no native ever
returns. If such a man lives in a fine house, and has a cunning cook,
then (even though he can paint) he may be admitted among the Forty, or
among the Thirty who attain not to the Forty. After that he can take
his ease; however ugly his offerings to Beauty, they are presented to
the public.'
'Well,' said Queen Mab, 'my curiosity is satisfied, and I no longer
wonder at the permanent scarecrows. But one thing still puzzles me.
What becomes of the offerings of the Forty after the temple closes?'
'They disappear by means of a very clever invention,' said the Owl.
'Long ago a famous priest, named Chantrey, perceived that the country
would be overrun with the offerings to which you allude. He therefore
bequeathed a sum of money, called the Chantrey bequest, to enable the
Forty to purchase each other's pictures.'
'But what do they do with them after they have bought them?' persisted
Mab, who had a very inquiring mind.
'Oh, goodness knows; don't ask _me_,' said the Owl crossly; 'nobody
ever inquires after them again!'