They are too beautifully made
For their tame earthliness of thought;
Ay, their immortal minds degrade
The meaner work His hands have wrought.”
The specifications of this painful charge were several. He had been walking with a beautiful girl one glorious night, with his soul uplifted by the influences of the hour, when she rudely jarred upon his mood by remarking that “their kitchen chimney smoked again.” Another young woman, with whom he was viewing a Crucifixion in a picture gallery, had “coldly curled her lip and praised the high priest’s garment.” A third had profaned one of his religious hours.
“I turned me at the slow Amen
And wiped my drowning eyes, and met
A trifling smile! Think ye of men?
I tell you man hath heart:—no, no,
It was a woman’s smile. They tell