"If I'm not mistaken it is what our artists call the 'line of beauty,'" observed Gazen.
"Oh, indeed!" responded Otāré, with pleased surprise. "Well, with us it is a symbol of the continuous unfolding of things; the graceful progress of development."
"So the path of evolution is the 'line of beauty,'" said the professor.
"Apparently," rejoined Otāré, "and as the ends of the curve point oppositely, we say that a thing has not reached its final stage—that its development is not complete—until it has turned to its opposite. Thus man is not a finished being until hate and selfishness have turned to love and self-sacrifice. The flower of the soul is love, and as the sun is an emblem of the divine love, when the sacred lily opens and displays all its beauty in the sunshine, it means to us that the flower of the soul blooms in the smile of 'The Giver.'"
"I see," said the professor; "and what is done with the flower?"
"It is an offering," replied Otāré, "and after the Priestess of the Lily, or Priestess of the Sun, as we call her, has shown it to the people it will be treasured in the temple, and will never fade."
"Beautiful woman, the priestess! And so young."
"She is barely seventeen. The Priestess of the Sun Lily must be in the flower of her age, and the early dawn of her womanhood. Every year by the popular voice she is chosen from all the maidens of the country for her intelligence, beauty, and goodness. For a year before the ceremony she lives in the temple with her maidens, and never leaves the sacred island, or has any visitors from the outer world. During this period she undergoes a preparation and purification for the fulfilment of her holy office—the culling of the flower. It consists mainly in the study of our sacred writings, the eating of a certain food, and bathing in the waters of a holy fountain, which issues from the rock in a sacred grotto of the island. When the ceremony of cutting the lily is over, and the holy month has expired, that is to say in ten days from now, she will leave the temple and return to her family. Another girl will take her place—the priestess appointed for the coming year—in fact, the maiden who gave her the sickle."
I had listened to this conversation with breathless interest, but without daring to take part in it.
"Will she ever marry?" enquired Gazen.