The Star in the West

140 THE STAR IN THE WEST Locusta , and yet is vestal and virgin ; white as the driven snow , pure as a mountain rill . One with the pale Mother of Bethlehem and the scarlet harlot of the City of Abominations . Then will the storm -clouds part , and the smoke and steam of the earth vanish , and the social harlot , whose painted buttocks have heaved and hog -wallowed through the centuries , shall be seized and hurled from the rock of Tarpeia , and smothered with the goatish kisses of her lechery midst the charnel glitter of her gold . And the Vestal courtezan will rise before us , purple and white , clothed in the sun , and set between the moon and the twelve stars of heaven . So another league will be accom plished toward that city which is God . We have already seen in “ The Mother's Tragedy " and “ The Fatal Force ,” that the love of the mother , though it could not cause the shadow to travel back wards one degree on the face of the dial , it at least clothed in a white garment of chastity, not only the amorous music -hall artiste , but even the incestuous queen of Egypt . And though “ Jezebel " did not love as they loved , her power of loving many exonerated her want of love for one or a few . She like the Circe of old who turned the followers of Ulysses into swine , herself fell a victim entangled in those same meshes she had spun wherein to entrap her unwary fellows . “ A woman who is without love, " writes Lévi , “ ab sorbs and degrades all who come near her ; she who loves , on the other hand , diffuses enthusiasm , nobility , and life .” 1 In her we see a contorted symbol of wifehood , whilst in the latter cases , and especially in " The Fatal 1 The Doctrine of Transcendent Magic , p . 125 .