SOCIAL CONTROL 71
the field correspondent, about as mythic to the popular mind as the struggles of the gods and the Titans. Or the artist arbitrarily associates the martial and the aesthetic. He envelops the brave man in a cloud of glory and substitutes a halo for a physiognomy. The fallen brave "sleep," while cowards "rot." Soldiers are "heroes," while stay-at-homes are "children," "women," "sweet little men."
But by far the mightiest service of the artist is the perfecting of the symbol. By his mythopceic faculty he transmutes realities and replaces the grisly features of hardship, mutilation, and death with some attractive image. Duty is "God's eldest daughter;" war becomes Mars, Bellona, "Thor's Hammer;" death appears as the Valkyrie, Azrael, the Angel of the Darker Drink, the Valley of the Shadow, "Lethe's sleepy stream;" the sword is the "Iron Bride;" the enemy are "hireling hosts" or "ruffian bands."
Especially is it the duty of the artist
"To body forth that image of the brain
We call our Country, visionary shape,
Loved more than woman, fuller of fire than wine,
Whose charm can none define,
Nor any, though he flee it, can escape!"
Symbols for the group arise naturally in the impassioned popular mind. But it needs rare imagination to give these vague shapes that outline and color and life and beauty which enable them to work upon citizens as the image of Helen upon the soul of Faust. Once the prince or king personified the unity of the group and the artist served patriotism by glorifying the leader. With modern states comes a harder task of perfecting and animating a pure symbol — Columbia, La Belle France, or Britannia — that men shall fight for as loyally as for chief or liege. As it is men who rear and defend the state, this group symbol is always feminine, appealing as maid or mother to the strongest affections of man's heart. It is likewise their high symbolic value that explains why queens inspire the most ardent loy-
- ↑ Lowell, Ode read at Concord.
