Architecture, Dancing, Acting. The mercy of God has luckily purified
these once pagan inventions, and transformed them into saving
instruments of grace. Yet it behooves us to examine with the utmost
diligence the possible sources of evil latent in each and every one of
those arts. Then we shall consider some of the special forms of sin that
may develop from them. St. Chrysostom warned the faithful against the
danger of the Eighth Deadly Art--Perfume...."

His phrases, which began to fall into the rhythmic drone of a Sunday
sermon, lulled Baldur to dreaming. Perfume--that delicious vocable! And
the contrast with what his own nostrils reported to his consciousness
made him slightly shiver. It was on a Friday night in Lent that, weary
in flesh and spirit, his conscience out of tune, he had entered the
church and taken the first vacant seat. Without, the air was sluggish;
after leaving his club the idea of theatres or calls had set his teeth
on edge. He longed to be alone, to weigh in the silence of his heart the
utter futility of life. Religion had never been a part of his training
as the only son of a millionnaire, and if he preferred the Roman
Catholic ritual above all others, it was because the appeal was to his
æsthetic sense; a Turkish mosque, he assured his friends, produced the
same soothing impression--gauze veils gently waving and slowly obscuring
the dulling realities of everyday existence. This _morbidezza_ of the
spirit the Mahometans call _Kef_; the Christians, pious ecstasy.

But now he could not plunge himself, despite the faint odour of incense
lingering in the atmosphere, into the deepest pit of his personality. At
first he ascribed his restlessness to the sultry weather, then to his
abuse of tea and cigarettes,--perhaps it was the sharp odour of the
average congregation, that collective odour of humanity encountered in
church, theatre, or court-rooms. The smell of poverty was mingled with