uld see her once again. He borrowed a razor from a
friend, went to the place, and nearly severed her head from her body.

Well, I went to see that man hanged. I had never seen anyone die before,
and such a thing as death by violence was altogether strange to me. I
was told to apply to the sheriff for permission to be present at the
execution. I devoutly hoped that permission would be refused, but it
was not. I shall not forget the sensation that overcame me as I left the
gaol on the night before the man was to be hanged. It was wintry weather
and a storm was breaking. The sky seemed, in fact, to be racked with the
storm clouds. But through them there was one open space with one bright
star visible. That star seemed to carry a promise of something
beyond, and I went away somewhat uplifted, though sick and sorry
notwithstanding.

When I went to the prison next day I, for the first time, bottomed the
depths of human stupidity. The wretched man was pinioned and led up to
the scaffold. I pray God I may never see such a sight again. The man was
just one shake of horror. The prison chaplain, who had primed himself
rather too freely with brandy--it was his first experience of this
duty--walked in front of the prisoner reciting the "Prayers for the
Dead." The poor condemned wretch, who was gabbling one sentence without
ceasing, and who was so terribly afraid as to be cognisant of nothing
save the fact that he _was_ afraid, had nineteen creaking black steps,
newly-tarred, to mount on reaching the scaffold. He turned to the warder
and muttered "I can't get up," but the latter slapped him on the back
with the utmost _bonhomie_, and said, "You'll get up all right." He did
get up and they hanged him. On the evening of the same day I read the
amazing proclamation in the evening papers that "the prisoner met his
fate with fortitude." Yet I never in my life saw anything so utterly
abject as that man's terror. I have since then come to the belief that
the average man has learned the measure of expression of emotion by what
he sees in the theatre. In the theatre a man has to make his emotions
visible and audible to a large number of people. But in real life deep
emotion is silent--I have always found it so. This was my first lesson
in this particular direction, and I came to the conclusion that the
average observer has no faculty for reading the expression of human
emotion at all. Only for the sake of that reflection have I ventured
upon