Pagina 134 di 896

The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed

at, was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril

of a less horrible sentence--had there been a chance of any one

of its savage details being spared--by just so much would he have

lost in his fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so

shamefully mangled, was the sight; the immortal creature that was

to be so butchered and torn asunder, yielded the sensation.

Whatever gloss the various spectators put upon the interest,

according to their several arts and powers of self-deceit, the

interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish.