Fetish

[Terrance]

Man created nothing. After 1500, the speed of progress so
 rapidly surpassed man’s gait as to alarm every one, as
though it were the
 acceleration of a falling body which the dynamic theory
takes it to be.

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Here opened another totally new education, which promised to
be by far the
 most hazardous of all. The knife-edge along which he must
crawl, like Sir
 Lancelot in the twelfth century, divided two kingdoms of
force which had
 nothing in common but attraction. They were as different as
a magnet is from
 gravitation, supposing one knew what a magnet was, or
gravitation, or love.
 The force of the Virgin was still felt at Lourdes, and
seemed to be as potent as
 X-rays; but in America neither Venus nor Virgin ever had
value as force;—at
 most as sentiment. No American had ever been truly afraid
of either.
                                                         9
   This problem in dynamics gravely perplexed an American
historian. The
 Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed
potent, not merely
 as a sentiment, but as a force. Why was she unknown in
America? For
 evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was ashamed
of herself,
 otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so
profusely all over her.
 When she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves,
but the
 monthly-magazine-made American female had not a feature
that would have
 been recognised by Adam. The trait was notorious, and often
humorous, but
 any one brought up among Puritans knew that sex was sin. In
any previous age,
 sex was strength. Neither art nor beauty was needed. Every
one, even among
 Puritans, knew that neither Diana of the Ephesians nor any
of the Oriental
 Goddesses was worshipped for her beauty. She was Goddess
because of her
 force; she was the animated dynamo; she was
reproduction—the greatest and
 most mysterious of all energies; all she needed was to be
fecund. Singularly
 enough, not one of Adams’s many schools of education had
ever drawn his
 attention to the opening lines of Lucretius, though they
were perhaps the finest
 in all Latin literature, where the poet invoked Venus
exactly as Dante invoked
 the Virgin:—
            ‘Quae quondam rerum naturam sola gubernas.’

 The Venus of Epicurean philosophy survived in the Virgin of
the Schools:—
               ‘Donna, sei tanto grande, e tanto vali,
              Che qual vuol grazia, e a te non ricorre,
                Sua disianza vuol volar senz’ ali.’

 All this was to American thought as though it had never
existed. The true
 American knew something of the facts, but nothing of the
feelings; he read the
 letter, but he never felt the law. Before this historical
chasm, a mind like that of
 Adams felt itself helpless; he turned from the Virgin to
the Dynamo as though
 he were a Branly coherer. On one side, at the Louvre and at
Chartres, as he
 knew by the record of work actually done and still before
his eyes, was the
 highest energy ever known to man, the creator four-fifths
of his noblest art,
 exercising vastly more attraction over the human mind than
all the
 steam-engines and dynamos ever dreamed of; and yet this
energy was unknown
 to the American mind. An American Virgin would never dare
command; an
 American Venus would never dare exist.
                                                        10
   The question, which to any plain American of the
nineteenth century seemed
 as remote as it did to Adams, drew him almost violently to
study, once it was
 posed; and on this point Langleys were as useless as though
they were Herbert
 Spencers or dynamos. The idea survived only as art. There
one turned as
 naturally as though the artist were himself a woman. Adams
began to ponder,
 asking himself whether he knew of any American artist who
had ever insisted
 on the power of sex, as every classic had always done; but
he could think only
 of Walt Whitman; Bret Harte, as far as the magazines would
let him venture;
 and one or two painters, for the flesh-tones. All the rest
had used sex for
 sentiment, never for force; to them, Eve was a tender
flower, and Herodias an
 unfeminine horror. American art, like the American language
and American
 education, was as far as possible sexless. Society regarded
this victory over sex
 as its greatest triumph, and the historian readily admitted
it, since the moral
 issue, for the moment, did not concern one who was studying
the relations of
 unmoral force. He cared nothing for the sex of the dynamo
until he could
 measure its energy.

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