118
THE STAR IN THE WEST
embedded
in a slight
verse
of four lines the
nucleus
of
all
true patriotism
,
greater than power
,
wealth
,
or
dominion
,
and that
is
motherhood
:
Fiercer desires may cast away
All things most good
;
A
people
may forget
to
-
day
Their motherhood
. 1
This
is
the condition
of
the England
of
to
-
day
:
“
O
England
!
England
,
mighty England
falls
!”
because
she
no
longer
knows
how
to
bear
Englishmen
.
Wealth
cries for luxury
,
and luxury sniffs
at
the hem
of
lust
,
and lust rises o’er
us
a
vampire kite
to
drink
dry the blood
of
our veins
.
The
two great
ideals
of
our country
,
as
Geoffrey
Mortimer
rightly
says
,
are
the
commercial
,
and the
voluptuous
.?
Every man striving
against his brother
,
struggling
and elbowing his way through the seething
crowds
of
human life
to
satisfy his own personal lusts
.
Gentility
has become
the
lowest
plane
of
mental
degradation
,
and
so
as
the monde sinks
in
this social
earthquake
does the demi
-
monde rise
.
Phryne
trips
lightly
to
-
day down
Piccadilly
,
bringing
with
her
no
little
of
the
beauties
of
Praxiteles
,
and the
craft
of
Apelles
.
We
see
her
no
longer
the draggle
-
tailed
prostitute
of
the more eminently
Christian
centuries
,
but
as
a
Venus
Anadyomene
rising
from
the
sea
of
human corruption
.
It
was
Phryne who uttered those
memorable wordsover the ruins
of
Thebes
:
“
Alexander
diruit
,
sed meretrix
Phryne
refecit
”;
and
it
is
now
Alice and Rosie
,
who are uttering
them over the ruins
of
the temple
of
Vesta
.
Thais cajoled Alexander
into
?
Mysteries
:
Lyrical
and Dramatic
,
vol
.
i,
p
.
121
.
2
Blight
of
Respectability
,
p
.
110
.