FASCINATION 155
men have swayed the masses with their fascination. ‘Magister dix ‘The Master has spoken.’ This is what motivates those who are born into eternal discipleship. ‘Amkus Plato sed magis am,cd s’eritas.’ ‘I love Plato but I prefer the truth,’ is the word of a man who senses that he is Plato’s equal and consequently is potentially a mister himself if he possesses, like Plato or like Aristotle, the ability to fascinate and inspire a school.
Jesus, in speaking of the people who follow the crowd, said, ‘I will that when they look they shall not see, and when they listen they shall not understand, because I apprehend danger from their conversion and I fear their healing. On reading these terrible words by the One who sacrificed Himself in philanthropy, I am reminded of that Crispinus of whom Juvenal said, ‘Ar vittiis aeger solaque libidine fortis’ — ‘Exhausted by every vice, his only remaining energy is the fever of debauchery.’ What compassionate physician would have wished to cure Crispinus’ fever? That would have signed his death warrant.
Woe to the ungodly masses who arc no longer fascinated by the ideal of the superior powers! Woe to the poor fool who, fool that he is, no longer believes in the divine mission of the priests or in the divine right of kings! For he needs must be fascinated by something, whether by gold or by brute pleasures. and will find himself fatally excluded from the company of truth and justice.
Nature herself, when she intends to compel living creatures to perform her great mysteries, assumes the character of a sovcrcign priestess, fascinating at one and the same time their senses, their spirits and their hearts. There are two fatal magnetic forces which, when they meet, form an invincible providence called love. The woman is transformed into a syiph. a pen, a fairy, an angel. The man becomes a hero, almost a god. When they are sufficiently deceived, these poor innocents who adore one another’s spurious appearance. they prepare themselves for the hour of satiety and sad awakening! The great secret of marriage is to defer this hour. At all costs one must prolong the error, feed the folly and perpetuate the unguessed deception. Life is then a play in which the husband must be a superlative actor, always on stage if he does not wish to be tricked like Pantaloon in the Itahan farce; a comedy in which the wife must study her role of coquette to perfection, always concealing her more legitimate desires if she hopes to retain her husband’s desire. Domestic bliss
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