"It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." We
know the rest; how, at the request of Herodias' daughter, Herod sent and
beheaded John in prison, and how she took his head in a charger and
brought it to her mother. Great painters have shown us again and again
the last act--outwardly hideous, but really beautiful--of St John's
heroic drama, in a picture of the lovely dancing girl with the prophet's
head in a charger--a dreadful picture; and yet one which needed to be
painted, for it was a terrible fact, and is still, and will be till this
wicked world's end, a matter for pity and tears rather than for
indignation. The most perfect representations, certainly the most
tragical I know of it, are those which are remarkable, not for their
expression, but for their want of expression--the young girl in brocade
and jewels, with the gory head in her hands, thinking of nothing out of
those wide vacant foolish eyes, save the triumph of self-satisfied
vanity; for the spite and revenge is not in her, but in her wicked
mother. She is just the very creature, who, if she had been better
trained, and taught what John the Baptist really was, might have
reverenced him, worshipped him, and ministered unto him.
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