James Clarke asked what was the difference between the girl-mother—the Madonna—and the Greek Venus.
Margaret replied, with more patience than I was capable of, that the Madonna represented more than passing womanly beauty. She was prophetic, and lived again in her child.
Then, persisted James F., why was Vulcan the husband of Beauty, to which Margaret gave no satisfactory answer. He then gave his own thought, to which I can do no justice, although it was what I tried in vain to say at the last conversation. It amounted to this,—that in seeking for beauty we lose it, but in aiming at utility through hard labor we find perfect proportion—and consequently perfect beauty. He said that he and his sister Sarah had often spoken to each other about this, and he felt that the time would come when essays would be written about our ships, as we now write essays about the Pyramids and the Greek Art. Posterity might find the proof of our search after beauty in the graceful prow and swelling hold and tall, tapering mast or shrouds of shredded jet; in the bellying canvas and the patron saint which watches the wake from the stern. But we know that the ship, the most beautiful object in our modern world, was the product of labor, gradually evoked, according to the law of fitness, compass, and general proportion. To bring its form into a natural relation to wind and wave, was to find perfect harmony and beauty. At first the prow was too sharp, and the water had rushed over it; the hold was too shallow, and she sat ungracefully where she now rides as mistress.
Emerson quoted some German author to the same effect.
Mr. Clarke said there was something in one of R. W. E.’s own Essays which expressed the same thing.
Emerson laughed and said, “Very important authority,” and would have changed the subject, when—
William White said that it did not tally well with James Clarke’s theory that the ugly steamer had succeeded the beautiful clipper.
Mr. Clarke said the theory failed only because there was no noble end in view. The steamer was not intended to be in harmony with Nature.
Emerson asked if the Greeks had no symbol for natural beauty. Several were suggested that he would not accept, but he finally took Diana on Charles Wheeler’s suggestion.