n inflexible perseverance, the dark-browed Normans,
and the men of fair Bretagne, swooped down falcon-like from their nests
among the rocks and by the seas of Northern Europe upon the impetuous
Saracens, and fought brave poems that were written on sacred soil with
their blood. From the strife of years the heroes returned, their flowing
locks whitened by years and suffering, the fair Saxon faces browned by
the fervent suns of the distant East. From hardship and imprisonment
they marched with gay songs amid acclamations and welcome to their homes
upon the Northern shores. Their once shining armor was dimmed and
rusted with their own blood; but they bore upon their 'spears the light'
of a culture more refined, a knowledge more subtle, than those high
latitudes had ever before known.

From this marriage of the barbaric vigor of the North with the delicate
and infinitely pliable sensuousness of the South, the classic union of
Strength and Desire, Chivalry was born. Leaping forth to light and
power, a majestic creation, glittering in the knightly panoply, noble by
its knightly vows, it stood resplendent against the dark background of
the past ages, the inevitable and legitimate offspring of the times and
circumstances that gave it birth. The courtly baptism was eagerly
sought, its requirements rigidly obeyed. The lands bristled with the
lances of their valiant sons, and Quixotic expeditions were the order of
the age. But not alone with sword and spear were gallant contests
decided; the gauntlet thrown at the feet of a proud foe was not always
of iron. _El gai saber_, the _gaye science_, held its august courts,
where princesses entered the lists and vanquished gallant troubadours
with the concord of their sweet measures. Slowly, yet with resistless
strength, a new social world was rising upon the splendid ruins of the
old. Its principles were just, if their garb was fantastical. It began
with that almost superstitious reverence for woman, which had borrowed
its religion from the Teuton, its romance from the Minnesinger and the
Trouveur: it will end in the honesty and freedom of a world mature for
its enjoyment.

Thus, while the kingdoms of Europe were rising to a height where to
oppress, to torture, to fight, were to seem their sole aim and purpose,
in a hitherto obscure corner of the great theatre of modern life an
unknown element was developing itself, which was in time to shake the
greatest nations with its power, to infla