“My dear Dr. Greenhill,—
“You flatter me by your question, but I think it was Keble who, when asked in his own case, answered that poets were not bound to be critics, or to give a sense to what they had written; and, though I am not, like him, a poet, at least, I may plead that I am not bound to remember my own meaning, whatever it was, at the end of fifty years. Anyhow, there must be a statute of limitations for writers of verse, or it would be quite a tyranny if, in an art which is the expression, not of truth but of imagination and sentiment, one were obliged to be ready for examination on the transient state of mind which came upon one when homesick or seasick, or any other way sensitive or excited. Yours most truly,
“John H. Newman.”
One of the most remarkable of the Oxford sermons of the famous ecclesiastic quoted in the foregoing paragraph, John Henry (afterwards cardinal) Newman, entitled, “On the Development of Christian Doctrine,” explains how science teaches that the earth goes round the sun, and how Scripture teaches that the sun goes round the earth, and it ends by advising the discreet believer to accept both.
IDEAL PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS
The Perfect Woman, Nobly Planned
Using the head-length as a unit of measurement, a prominent portrait painter tabulates as follows the proportions of a perfectly formed woman:
A woman should measure in height 5 feet 5 inches.
Eight heads is the proper height,—that is, the head measured from the top of the forehead to the tip of the chin.
From shoulder to shoulder she should measure 2 of her heads.