gorgeous pageant
beyond, had vanished from her imagination, and therefore from the
imagination of the spectators, under the constraining inspiration of
her art, and they and she alike saw nothing but the lonely sea around
Cytherea, and the goddess hovering above its emerald mirror, saying
forth on sea, and air, and shore, beauty, and joy, and love....

Philammon's eyes were bursting from his head with shame and horror: and
yet he could not hate her; not even despise her. He would have done so,
had there been the faintest trace of human feeling in her countenance to
prove that some germ of moral sense lingered within: but even the faint
blush and the downcast eye with which she had entered the theatre were
gone; and the only expression on her face was that of intense enjoyment
of her own activity and skill, and satisfied vanity, as of a petted
child.... Was she accountable? A reasonable soul, capable of right or
wrong at all? He hoped not .... He would trust not.... And still Pelagia
danced on; and for a whole age of agony, he could see nothing in heaven
or earth but the bewildering maze of those white feet, as they twinkled
over their white image in the marble mirror.... At last it was
over. Every limb suddenly collapsed, and she stood drooping in soft
self-satisfied fatigue, awaiting the burst of applause which rang
through Philammon's ears, proclaiming to heaven and earth, as with a
mighty trumpet-blast, his sister's shame.

The elephant rose, and moved forward to the side of the slabs. His back
was covered with crimson cushions, on which it seemed Aphrodite was
to return without her shell. She folded her arms across her bosom, and
stood smiling, as the elephant gently wreathed his trunk around her
waist, and lifted her slowly from the slab, in act to place her on his
back....

The little feet, clinging half fearfully together, had Just risen from
the marble-The elephant started, dropped his delicate burden heavily on
the slab, looked down, raised his forefoot, and throwing his trunk into
the air, gave a shrill scream of terror and disgust....

The foot was red with blood--the young boy's blood--which was soaking
and bubbling up through the fresh sand where the elephant had trodden,
in a round, dark, purple spot....

Philammon could bear no more. Another moment and he had hurled down
through the dense mass of spectators, clearing rank after rank of
seats by the sheer strength of madness, leaped the balustrade int