that we are not it.

The Madonna pictures, multiplied without end, stand for peace,
faith, hope, trustfulness and love. All that is fairest, holiest,
purest, noblest, best, men have tried to portray in the face of the
Madonna. All the good that is in the hearts of all the good women
they know, all the good that is in their own hearts, they have made
to shine forth from the "Mother of God." Woman has been the symbol
of righteousness and faith.

On the other hand, it was a woman--Louise de la Ramee--who said,
"Woman is the instrument of lust." Saint Chrysostom wrote, "She is
the snare the Devil uses to lure men to their doom." I am not quite
ready to accept the dictum of that old, old story that it was the
woman who collaborated with the serpent and first introduced sin and
sorrow into the world. Or, should I believe this, I wish to give
woman due credit for giving to man the Fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge--the best gift that ever came his way. But the first
thought holds true in a poetic way: it has always been, is yet, and
always will be true, that the very depths of degradation are sounded
only by woman. As poets, painters and sculptors have ever chosen a
woman to stand for what is best in humanity, so she has posed as
their model when they wanted to reveal the worst.

This desire to depict villainy on a human face seems to have found
its highest modern exponent in Aubrey Beardsley. With him man is an
animal, and woman a beast. Aye, she is worse than a beast--she is a
vampire. Kipling's summing up of woman as "a rag and a bone and a
hank of hair" gives no clue to the possibilities in way of subtle,
reckless reaches of deviltry compared with a single, simple, outline