The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian)Harding, Ellison
Science
The Woman Who Vowed (The Demetrian)
Harding, Ellison
Science fiction; Utopias -- Fiction
suit the new conditions, those who had contributed their leisure to the
beautifying of the streets, turned their attention to the neglected
foundations on the Heights. They found in the new Christian spirit
something of the enthusiasm of the thirteenth century, and ridding the
creed of all save the principle of love which Christ had made the
foundation of His church, set themselves to embodying this principle
with its mystic consequences of sacrifice into gothic arch and
deep-stained glass, upon a scale and design heretofore never
accomplished. Abandoning the transitional style at first contemplated,
they adopted the general scheme of Chartres; but in lieu of the almost
discordant steeples of Chartres they substituted a design taken rather
from what is left of St. Jean, at Soissons, varying in height and
detail, but identical in style, stimulating wonder without shocking it.
The entrance porches of the western façade were inspired by Rheims and
Bourges, for there were five of them; the nave and choir towered to the
heights of Beauvais; and in the center rose the spire of Salisbury. The
lateral steeples flanking the north and south approaches were completed
with the same bewildering variety as on the west front, and the apse,
where rested the sanctuary, terminated the story with a cluster of
chapels that equaled, if not excelled, the _chevet_ of Le Mans; and so
every part of this tribute to Christ lifted itself up in adoration to
heaven like a flame. It rose from a green sward, and adjoining it, on
the north side, was a cloister that in the hush of its seclusion brought
back hallowed recollections of a bygone age.
It was from this cloister that Latona drew her following; for Latona,
with her thoughts turned to Eleusis and not to Galilee, conceived of a
worship which--though sorrow had a part in it--partook also of joy and
thanksgiving; sacrifice assuredly, but for the happiness of this world,
rather than for its mortification; an after life also, but an after life
for which preparation in this world might through the great
unselfishness of a few assure the happiness of the many. So that while
sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice had become the underlying principle
of the Christian religion, sacrifice for the making of joy became the
central idea of the new cult. And Latona, as indeed every mystic, the
more she dwelt upon these things, the more she grew to believe in her
mission; she began by dreaming dreams and ended by seeing visions; she
found that fasting and asceticism contributed to lengthen and strengthen
the moments when, losing consciousness of this world, she seemed to find
herself in direct communion with the divine. Her body soon showed the
traces of her spiritual life; she lost her beauty, but in the place of
it came a happiness so radiant that as she walked in the streets to her
allotted task it caused men and women to stand and wonder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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