LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 

 M 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
THE GARDENS OF 
 APHRODITE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDGAR SALTUS 
 
 Halt HailTheClub's All Here 
 
 Permetl Club Book 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 PENNELL CLUB 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 1920 
 
 AMS PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
Reprinted from the edition of 1920 
 
 First AMS EDITION published 1968 
 
 Manufactured in the United States of America 
 
 AMS PR ESS, INC. 
 
 New York, N.Y. 10003 
 
AT the conclusion of a 
 war long since forgotten, 
 Horace wreathed him 
 self with roses, helped 
 himself to falernian, raised the cup 
 to Venus and sang, "Nunc est 
 bibendum" which he had cribbed 
 from Alcaeus. 
 
 That night Cleopatra's diadem 
 had fallen and with it her realm. 
 The fine clatter of both time has 
 hushed. Of it all one negligently 
 remembers that the lady was a very 
 pretty woman. There was a fairer 
 one yet. There was Venus. 
 
 Descended in flame from the 
 depth of the archaic skies, adding 
 perfumes and riddles to her incan 
 descent robe, trailing it from hill to 
 sea, enveloping cities and kingdoms 
 in her fervent embrace, burning 
 them with the fever of her kisses, 
 burning them to such ashes that to 
 day barely the memory of their 
 names endures, yet evolving mean- 
 
4 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 while in successive but always trans 
 parent avatars, she passed to her 
 high place in Paphos, where, from 
 her throne of love, she ruled the 
 world. 
 
 She rules it still. Paphos has 
 crumbled. The crystal parapets 
 from which she leaned and laughed 
 are gone. Her temples the ages 
 have eaten, her altars are dust. But 
 though her liturgy has ceased, 
 though her rites are no more, though 
 her worship has altered and the sky 
 itself has changed, her spirit abides 
 with us tonight as potently as when 
 Horace raised that cup. 
 
 When Rome fell, humanity be 
 came divided into beasts of burden 
 and beasts of prey. From that fate 
 the fall of Hunland preserved us. 
 Yet, already at the time, the temples 
 of Venus were razed, her rites had 
 grown ribald. But only a little be 
 fore, when her shrines foamed with 
 the faithful, Augustin, a young man 
 about town, who afterward became 
 a saint, turned his back on them. 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 5 
 
 "Give me chastity," he prayed 
 and, with true fervour, immediately 
 added: "But not yet!" 
 
 In Luxuriopolis, the prayer was 
 discordant ; it was not phenomenal. 
 Chastity, the ideal condition of the 
 ideal gods, was the cardinal virtue 
 of the Pythagoreans. Moreover, 
 though Vesta had faltered there were 
 vestals in Rome. There were there 
 priests of Osiris, priestesses of 
 Mithra, hierophants of Pallas, on all 
 of whom chastity was imposed. It 
 was therefore a recognised aberra 
 tion. The prayer consequently was 
 familiar. But not its supplement. 
 That "Not yet!" followed monks in 
 their cloisters and nuns in their cells. 
 In the bastilles of purity the petals 
 of the silver lilies shook. 
 
 Augustin has been blamed for 
 that. It seems very pompous to 
 blame anybody for anything. Au 
 gustin was not then a saint. He was 
 merely a novice, tolerably rakish and 
 considerably farceur. 
 
 "To the devil with thin women 
 
6 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 and the communion of souls!" 
 Gautier, another young pietist, long 
 later exclaimed. From behind the 
 centuries Augustin was perhaps but 
 preluding him. The words differ, 
 but the prayer is the same. The 
 prayer then was in the air, yet with 
 it were gusts of hysteria. In pre 
 cincts narrow and dark the end of 
 the world was so confidently awaited 
 that chastity was regarded as a prep 
 aration for the judgment day. It 
 was in these circumstances that Au 
 gustin, his tongue in his cheek, de 
 manded it. But not yet ! 
 
 Subsequently he became a saint. 
 Perhaps now he is an angel. Mean 
 while his "Not yet" was repeated 
 and continues to be, not because his 
 Confessions are currently meditated, 
 but because Venus sees that it is. 
 
 That is not the business, it is the 
 sovereign pleasure of the goddess of 
 whom it has been idly said that she 
 incites men to their best manners 
 and worst passions. But why worst? 
 Consider Othello. His passions 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 7 
 
 were pleasant, it was his manners 
 that were detestable. With these 
 Venus had nothing whatever to do. 
 Love transfigures. Any other emo 
 tion is very unbecoming. It is with 
 love alone that Venus deals. When 
 first she appeared among the daz 
 zled immortals, she had the graces 
 for handmaids and joy for page. 
 Jealousy was absent from her glow 
 ing cortege. It always' has been. 
 The art of loving people as though 
 you hated them is one of which she 
 is unaware. 
 
 Consider Helen. As in an al 
 legory of beauty which is for all and 
 yet for none, Venus guided her from 
 hand to hand. Helen's little affairs 
 began before she was out of the nur 
 sery. The war that was afterward 
 fought for her was the struggle of 
 the householder and the burglar. 
 Pending it and during her earlier 
 and subsequent adventures, not once 
 did jealousy show its head. The fact 
 is perhaps not very poignant. 
 Helen's lovers lived a long time ago 
 
8 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 and probably never lived at all. But 
 if vulgarity may be properly defined 
 as the behaviour of other people, it 
 becomes curious that gentlefolk to 
 day should be more vulgar than 
 legendary scamps. Besides, even 
 though the latter are mythical their 
 common sense is not. La Roche 
 foucauld very temperately remarked 
 that lovers commonly cease to be 
 sensible when they cease to be loved. 
 The remark was made at a later and 
 a viler day. It would have had no 
 meaning in these serener years. In 
 what the fates and the fathers have 
 left us of antiquity there are rivalries 
 and plenty of them; there is blood, 
 all you like, seas of it, oceans ! There 
 is a ribbon of crime so long, so 
 varied and so delectable that it makes 
 your hair curl. But of jealousy, not 
 a trace. The monstrous birth of 
 wedded shame and spite had no 
 place then in the gardens of Aphro 
 dite. Nor has it today. In any real 
 love there is room for other loves. 
 It is the heart of them all. Every 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 9 
 
 true lover has the attitude however 
 much he may lack the wit of 
 Verlaine. 
 
 Mets ton front sur mon front et ta main 
 
 dans ma main, 
 Et fais-moi des serments que tu rompras 
 
 demain. 
 
 The attitude may seem cynical. It 
 is the serenity of a sage preaching 
 gaiety and indulgence for the acci 
 dents which we cannot avoid. 
 
 Si Ton vous a trahi, ce n'est pas la 
 trahison qui importe, c'est le par 
 don. . . . Mais si la trahison n'a pas 
 accrue la simplicite, la confiance plus 
 haute, Tetendue de Tamour, on vous a 
 trahi bien inutilement, et vous pouvez 
 vous dire qu'il n'est rien arrive. 
 
 Another view and perhaps supe 
 rior. It is Maeterlinck's. But poets 
 are rarely in unison. It is one of 
 their charms. On the subject of love 
 their dissonances are notable. They 
 are various and tortured as the lays 
 in which they float. For after all, 
 to say, as Chamfort did, that love is 
 the contact of two epiderms sounds 
 
10 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 austere. To call it, as Balzac did, 
 the poetry of the senses, sounds 
 prosy. To say that it is to be two 
 and yet but one seems calculating. 
 To describe it as a privilege mutu 
 ally bestowed by two people for their 
 common discomfort sounds better. 
 To declare that it consists in not 
 being bored by the party of the sec 
 ond part sounds best. But not exact. 
 None of these definitions is exact, 
 yet all have their value. With en 
 tire clarity they tell what love is not. 
 That is very helpful. The moment 
 we know what a thing is not, we can 
 begin to conjecture what it may be. 
 That process has enabled practi 
 tioners to diagnose love as a patho 
 logical condition superinduced by a 
 fermentation of the molecules of the 
 imagination. Less technically, love 
 is a state of febrility. It is a fever 
 that ends with a yawn. 
 
 In support of the diagnosis, cita 
 tions follow; primarily one from 
 Schopenhauer, whom it is always a 
 pleasure to quote, particularly be- 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 11 
 
 cause, by his last will and testament, 
 he gave, devised and bequeathed to 
 Germany all the contempt of what 
 ever kind, nature or description, and 
 wheresoever situated, of which he 
 died seized and possessed. 
 
 Freely rendered, this is what the 
 nobleman said : 
 
 Love is the Great Mother planning the 
 creation of another being, and the precise 
 instant in which that being's future ex 
 istence becomes possible is the very 
 moment when two young people begin to 
 fancy each other. The seriousness with 
 which they consider one another is due to 
 their unconscious meditation concerning 
 the child which they may create. For in 
 its essence, love is always and everywhere 
 the same a reverie on the next genera 
 tion. 
 
 To induce the meditation, Nature fevers 
 the individual with an insane idea of hap 
 piness, and with the illusion that union 
 with some one person will procure it. Yet 
 when her object is achieved, disenchant 
 ment ensues. The illusion that gulled you 
 has vanished. 
 
 But, meanwhile, such may be the 
 potency of it, such too its witchery and 
 
12 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 enthralment that, if need be, all the bar 
 riers of the world are burned away. Once 
 Venus has her prey by the throat, laws, 
 obstacles, conventions exist no longer. 
 Precepts and homilies are as incense 
 poured on flames. There is only madness 
 until the great alienist Time appears, 
 until the insanity abates, until the fever 
 passes, and the individual re-becomes 
 normal. 
 
 In that condition a philosopher may re 
 main, but not the ordinary mortal. Fever 
 returns to the flesh as the leaf returns to 
 the tree. Thereat the Carnival begins da 
 capo. Your conscience may rebel. But 
 what are your interests to Nature's? Hers 
 alone are supreme. She snuffs yours out 
 like a candle. 
 
 Schopenhauer expressed himself 
 admirably, which no other German 
 has, except Heine, who was French. 
 But Muhammad knew also how to 
 express himself. So, too, did Con 
 fucius. Both went straight to the 
 point. 
 
 Confucius said that a gentleman's 
 home should be well supplied with 
 females. Muhammad added that a 
 gentleman could not have too many 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 13 
 
 either here or hereafter. In the lat 
 ter resort he promised the faithful a 
 fresh houri every day. 
 
 Whatever a houri may be, a fresh 
 one every day seems either excessive 
 or else suitable only to the Hercules' 
 of love. But no doubt the faithful 
 could diet if they liked. In any 
 event, Schopenhauer, Confucius 
 and Muhammad agreed that it is not 
 natural for man to cleave to one dish. 
 If I interpret them correctly, they 
 saw that when the fever abates, 
 yawns will supervene unless the 
 menu is varied. 
 
 Nowadays most men feel that way 
 about it, even though they omit to 
 say so. Whatever women may think, 
 usually they profess the opposite. 
 But then a man means the things he 
 does not say and a woman says the 
 things she does not* mean. That is 
 only right. The world could hardly 
 be madder than it is and yet if every 
 body told the truth it would be. 
 
 But the problem presents another 
 angle. Whatever a woman may be 
 
14 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 at twenty, at any age any man, who 
 is a man, is a potential scoundrel. 
 The eyes of the world, official duties, 
 business interests, other deterrents 
 equally noble may restrain, but at 
 heart every man is Don Juan. 
 
 Don Juan fathered the Wander 
 ing Jew. He assisted at the birth of 
 Faust. He antedates Mammon. 
 Protean, indefinite, eternal, he is the 
 oldest and the youngest being on 
 earth. Born in the Garden of Kama, 
 his avatars are as many as Vishnu's, 
 his masks as multiple as his amours. 
 
 Tirso de Molina, a Spanish 
 writer, gave him his present style 
 and title, but not his charm. Mozart 
 supplied that. In Spain he was 
 merely the hidalgo, though with an 
 attitude that faintly mimicked the 
 Cid. Invited to sup with the dead, 
 he outfaced the damned. Otherwise, 
 that is in pursuit of his vocation, he 
 was still very primitive. The art of 
 gallantry, its lures, beguilements, 
 temptations, he was as yet too un 
 schooled to observe. His method 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 15 
 
 was the frank simplicity of the faun. 
 
 Subsequently, when Moliere took 
 him in hand, he became a bandit of 
 love, not a bandit after the manner 
 of the Cid, who was the emperor of 
 bandits, but a parlour highwayman 
 in dirty white gloves. 
 
 Mozart, in his opera of operas, 
 presented him properly. From that 
 bath of champagne and what 
 champagne ! the champagne of 
 music that not only bubbles but 
 laughs! the legendary type 
 emerged, not purified heaven for 
 bid! but delightful. 
 
 Here enters Casanova. Up stage, 
 saluting him, is Don Juan's parody, 
 Corneille's Matamore. 
 
 Mille mouraient par jour a force de 
 nVaimer! 
 
 J'avais des rendezvous de toutes les prin 
 cesses. 
 
 Les reines a 1'envi mendiaient mes car 
 esses. 
 
 Celle d'Ethopie et celle de Japon 
 
 Dans leurs soupirs d'amour ne melaient 
 que mon nom. 
 
16 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 De passion pour moi deux sultanes 
 
 tremblerent; 
 Deux autres pour me voir du serail 
 
 s'echapperent. 
 J'en fus mal quelque temps avec le Grand 
 
 Seigneur. 
 
 In the ballroom of Europe that 
 Venice was, Casanova, at the age of 
 fifteen the age of Cherubino ef 
 fected his debut with a scandal. To 
 scandalise Venice was enormous. 
 Orientally corrupt, byzantinely fair, 
 in her porphyry palaces and liquid 
 streets masterpieces and license were 
 at home. The impossible achieved, 
 he multiplied it. Throughout the 
 eighteenth-century metropoles of 
 pleasure, in the lovely days when 
 love was life, his existence became a 
 spangle of continuous caresses. No 
 man perhaps has dreamed as that 
 man lived. From palace to hovel he 
 passed, from inns to convents, from 
 highways to gardens, from prison to 
 court, charming and winning three 
 thousand women, abbesses and bal 
 let girls, princesses and demoiselles, 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 17 
 
 the married, the single, the high and 
 the low, alluring every one of them 
 through the exercise of his secret 
 the secret of not having any which 
 is the greatest of all covered mean 
 while not only with the heady per 
 fumes of his myriad amours, but with 
 honours from pope and kings, and, 
 quite lavishly, concluding his unex 
 ampled career as librarian to a 
 princelet who had no library. 
 Moralists have declaimed against 
 him and, I am sure, very justly. 
 Casanova was not a moral person. 
 He was merely delightful. 
 
 Nowadays men have no time to be 
 delightful. Formerly they had time 
 for nothing else. Richelieu made 
 up to three generations of women 
 and affiche'd his last mistress at 
 eighty-five. Men like he and 
 Casanova were the giants of gallan 
 try. Today the race is extinct. To 
 day gallantry is encounterable only 
 in old books that nobody reads any 
 more. That is quite as it should be. 
 Besides, the pomps of matrimony re- 
 
18 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 main. Concerning them it may be 
 profitable to consult Rabelais and 
 meditate Panurge. 
 
 P a n u r g e contemplated mat 
 rimony, but, uncertain of its charms 
 that might be perils, he sought ad 
 vice. He sought it from the wise, 
 from the learned, from the mad, 
 from witches, soothsayers, cards and 
 dice. It was a belfry that instructed 
 him, or no, it was the bottle. But 
 meanwhile in staggering, blinded 
 and dizzy, from the orgie of oracles 
 and saloperie which his questions 
 had provoked, he heard the chimes 
 of fatidic bells. 
 
 Marie-toy, marie-toy, marie, marie ! Si 
 tu te maries, marie, marie, tres bien t'en 
 trouveras, veras, veras, marie, marie! 
 
 There were the bells urging, in 
 citing him to marry. The next mo 
 ment they changed their tune. 
 
 Marie point, marie point, point, point, 
 point! Si tu te maries, marie, marie, tu 
 t'en repentiras, tiras, tiras! 
 
 Confused by the conflicting ex- 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 19 
 
 hortations, Panurge behaved very 
 sensibly. He got drunk. 
 
 There are topics about which 
 words hover like enchanted bees. 
 They smell good. Getting drunk is 
 not one of them, or getting married 
 either, but love is. It is lilian. Un 
 fortunately, lilies that fester smell 
 worse than weeds. Apart from 
 mythology and even there apart 
 from the Apuleian account of 
 Cupid and Psyche, the history of 
 love does not contain a single story 
 in which melancholy does not sit and 
 brood. It does not contain one story 
 that can make you much in love with 
 love. As pages turn and faces 
 emerge, always when they do not 
 drip with tears they reek with blood. 
 Always you catch an echo of the re 
 frain; Sono TAmore, difida di me. 
 
 In another tongue, Sappho heard 
 it. She drowned herself. Hero 
 heard it. She also drowned herself. 
 Then upward on the winding stair 
 of dream it passed from realm to 
 realm. As it sounded at Lesbos and 
 
20 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE. 
 
 the Hellespont, so did it sound at 
 Joyeuse Garde, at Tintagel and 
 Astolat. 
 
 There was Guinevere, daughter 
 of Leodigrance, wife of Arthur 
 Pendragon. There, too, was Sir 
 Launcelot du Lake whom she had in 
 favour. "And of a truth/' the old tale 
 tells, "he loved the queen above all 
 other dames and damsels all his 
 life." Yes, and with a love that 
 killed her, killed the king, killed 
 Elaine, killed Sir Launcelot du 
 Lake. 
 
 There was Yseult to whom Tris 
 tram harped The Lay of Love that 
 dieth not so tellingly that when for 
 love of her he died, she sobbed her 
 self to sleep. "Neither did they dis 
 turb more/' the old tale tells, "for 
 they knew her slumber was death- 
 fast/' 
 
 There was Etzel's wife, Kriem- 
 held of Burgundy who loved the 
 faultless Siegfried and when he was 
 slain died also. 
 
 "Then," says the historian, "alone 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 21 
 
 at the board King Etzel sat and 
 wept. He touched not of the mead- 
 horn, sorrow was his meat, tears had 
 he or drink. So Pain dogs Pleas 
 ure's steps. Ended was the feast." 
 
 There were Francesca and Paolo, 
 who read together of Launcelot and 
 Guinevere. "Several times during 
 the reading," the girl confided to 
 Dante, "our eyes met and we 
 blushed. Yet when we learned how 
 that tender lover kissed the mouth 
 he loved, he who never more shall 
 be separated from me tremblingly 
 kissed my own. Quel giorno piu 
 non vi leggemmo avante we read 
 no more that day." No, nor on any 
 other. The slaughter that followed 
 then is choked with mystery, with 
 rime sparse and the dust of years. 
 
 There were Canace and Macare, 
 whom Lydgate in the Temple of 
 Glass praised as foremost among 
 the lovers of the world. Their story 
 had preceded them. It had been 
 told in Rome, told in Athens, told 
 in Babylon long before. The story 
 
22 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 and the horror of it has been retold 
 since time began. 
 
 There was the tragedy of Romeo 
 and Juliet which Luigi da Porto got 
 at the baths of Caldiero from a Ver 
 onese gossip. There is the deeper 
 tragedy of Desdemona which 
 Cinthio revealed. Gounod embroid 
 ered for the one and Verdi for the 
 other the echo of that refrain, the 
 echo of its menace, its haunting 
 threat of mud, of blood and tears. 
 
 Sono PAmore, difida di me! In 
 the lovely land of love there are 
 fresher measures, other songs, songs 
 strung with caresses, hymns per 
 fumed with kisses, pure as prayer. 
 But always the refrain follows after. 
 It does not make you much in love 
 with love. Nothing can except the 
 absence of it. It is only in fairyland 
 and the first fevers that love is a 
 lovely thing. 
 
 There is a reason for all things, 
 there is one for that. The reason is 
 an illusion with which ignorance 
 has enveloped us. The majority of 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 23 
 
 us believe that we are free to do as 
 we wish and, subject to the limita 
 tions of place and circumstance, so 
 we are, apparently that is, and in the 
 appearance is the illusion. The de 
 lusion comes from the pulp behind 
 the forehead in which there are num 
 berless little cells which, through as 
 many currents, create our wants and 
 with them our tastes, good or bad, 
 our temptations, our humours and 
 even the lack of them. 
 
 Most of us know what we want. 
 What most of us do not know is why 
 we want what we do want. It is the 
 cells and currents that prompt us. It 
 is they who force their will upon us, 
 not we who force our will on them. 
 The source of any action is not men 
 tal, it is temperamental. Most of us 
 think otherwise and there is the illu 
 sion. There, too, is the explanation 
 of every affaire du coeur. 
 
 The cells impress the individual 
 with the conviction that that man, or 
 that girl, is the one man or the one 
 girl for him, or for her. When sim- 
 
24 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 ilar cells similarly actuate the other 
 party, you get cards for the wedding. 
 Later you may get curious about the 
 divorce. For the cells that cause two 
 hearts to beat as one, do not guar 
 antee a continuous performance. 
 Besides, a continuous performance 
 may be very fatiguing. The impolite 
 yawn at it and the well-bred swear. 
 
 In home circles, the latter pro 
 ceeding is much the nicer. Swear 
 ing, cursing and stamping about is 
 always genteel and sometimes ir 
 resistible. Sardou with what for 
 him was decent psychology, made 
 Theodora cry at her young man: 
 "You insult me ! You love me still." 
 
 If the jeune premier, instead of 
 giving the lady a piece of such mind 
 as he possessed, had yawned at her, 
 never in the world could she have 
 deduced the rosy belief that she was 
 still the one and only. Unassisted 
 by any psychology however am 
 ateur, she would have known that 
 the brute was sick of her. But, in 
 the boudoir, harsh words are so 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 25 
 
 aphrodisaic that after a lady and her 
 gentleman have fought like the very 
 devil, as often as not they fall on 
 each other's neck. For true it is, has 
 been and probably ever will be, that 
 it is only when lovers cease to 
 quarrel that they are ceasing to love. 
 The more they fight the livelier it 
 gets, and the more they yawn the 
 peacefuller it becomes. That is 
 quite as it should be, were it not that 
 lovers weary even of themselves, 
 even of the best, even of squabbling 
 and making up, even of the peace- 
 table and its relaxing joys. 
 
 With all of which Venus has noth 
 ing whatever to do. Her sovereign 
 pleasure consists in stirring the 
 brain-cells, in fermenting the mol 
 ecules of the imagination, in creat 
 ing the delicate fever of love. As 
 the patient's temperature rises, she 
 laughs: in his delirium she rejoices. 
 But, before it can pass, she has gone. 
 The stricken and the bereft accuse 
 and upbraid her. These she does not 
 hear. The grotesque or merely ter- 
 
26 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 rific passions which she has un 
 leashed cannot mount to where she 
 is. It has been a common mistake 
 of astronomers to picture her incit 
 ing the tragedies of love, gloating 
 over those she has caused. The de 
 ceptive hallucinations of the de 
 lirium hallucinations so deceptive 
 that they dupe the patient into mis 
 taking for his own happiness that 
 which solely concerns the next gen 
 eration these vagaries are born of 
 her spells. In them she rejoices. 
 But what may ensue when the crisis 
 is passed, concerns her not at all. 
 Indifferently she turns her sphere of 
 stars. 
 
 What the original sin may have 
 been I do not know, but I fancy that 
 it consisted in making unoriginal 
 remarks. To say that it is a fine day 
 when the fact is patent, constitutes 
 one of those crimes which, to my 
 deep regret, the law cannot reach. 
 To tell of the gulleries of the goddess 
 is another. To denounce her as the 
 perturber of the world, the flesh and 
 
THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 27 
 
 the devil is a banality that has been 
 running about the bookshelves ever 
 since books were shelved and long 
 before. That Venus is subtle and 
 cruel is obvious. In spite of which 
 and more, too, at the possibility of 
 any possible febrifuge for the fever 
 which she induces, down at us, 
 through the centuries comes the 
 caveat, "Not yet." 
 
 The spells she throws summon 
 shame in every shape. They turn 
 lovers into skeletons at the feast, and 
 more horribly still into detectives in 
 the cupboard. There is no form of 
 felony that they omit to fashion. We 
 all know it. But though it were in 
 the power of man to abolish her 
 spells as thoroughly as the barba 
 rians demolished her shrines, still we 
 would cry "Not yet!" 
 
 Life is packed with delights 
 which the majority of us never en 
 joy. The world is full of charming 
 people whom few of us ever meet. 
 There are amusements for the 
 simple, austerities for the sage. But 
 
28 THE GARDENS OF APHRODITE 
 
 of all the gifts the gods can give or 
 take, the loveliness of love is still so 
 lovely that until the bubble blown by 
 Brahm shall break, until the heavens 
 shall fold and the universe collapse, 
 still will ascend that cry "Not yet!" 
 
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