The Star in the West

THE MOTHER 127 normal , love of man and woman for God is abnormal , and the abnormal in its turn breeds the lustful , whether the abnormality lies in the twists of the mind or the aberrations of the soul . Amnon lusted after Tamar , he was a mental monster ; Ezekiel devoured dung , he was a spiritual abortion . That a passionate nature is necessarily a lustful one , is often no more the case than that a lustful one need necessarily be passionate ; that lust as well as passion often inhabit the same mind is true enough , and that its forms are monstrous must be apparent to all students of sexual psychology ; as the cold blooded lust of the lecher , who can only find stimula tion for his gross lecheries in the horrors of a de Sade , devouring in security and ease maidens and youths , as the minotaur did of old— “ semibovemque virum , semivirumque bovem .” This is the lust which is the most horrid , and the most damnable ; it takes much to produce a passionate man , but little to engender a lustful one . The present generation possesses a mini mum of passion and a maximum of lust . There is no lust of Rome , of Greece , or Arabia , no vice of Sodom , of Paphos , or Lampsacus , that is not practised to - day in any of our larger modern towns . Lust of wealth , lust of ease , lust of renown , lie as cankering worms in our hearts ; and the cold bought lust of our marriage beds and our streets fill our days with woe . Chivalry is dead , and the gilded Ass reigns in the place of the champing Stallion , and brays its goatish desires over the naked form of the sterile Mule . No longer in this ice - bound age of frozen phalli do we hear sung : For , swooning at the fervid lips Of Artemis , the maiden kisses