For this reason
alone we should not grudge her her portrait, but we should try to
draw the line here. I do not think we ought to give the Virgin's
great-grandmother a statue. Where is it to end? It is like Mr.
Crookes's ultimissimate atoms; we used to draw the line at ultimate
atoms, and now it seems we are to go a step farther back and have
ultimissimate atoms. How long, I wonder, will it be before we feel
that it will be a material help to us to have ultimissimissimate
atoms? Quavers stopped at demi-semi-demi, but there is no reason to
suppose that either atoms or ancestresses of the Virgin will be so
complacent.
I have said that on St. Anne's left hand there is a lady who is
bringing in some flowers. St. Anne was always passionately fond of
flowers. There is a pretty story told about her in one of the
Fathers, I forget which, to the effect that when a child she was
asked which she liked best--cakes or flowers? She could not yet
speak plainly and lisped out, "Oh fowses, pretty fowses"; she added,
however, with a sigh and as a kind of wistful corollary, "but cakes
are very nice.
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