The morning was bitterly cold, but even this frail flower of
humanity had been drawn forth by the business that was now at hand.
Where is she now, and what?
A spectacle indeed, and for the eye of the mind a spectacle no less
various than for the bodily organ.
Bosoms seared and foul and sick with uncleanliness. Hearts bound in
the fetters of crime. Hot passions broken loose. Discord rampant. Some
that smote the breast nightly in the anguish of remorse. Some that
knew not where to hide from the eye of conscience the secret sin that
corroded the soul.
Lonely, utterly lonely, in this dense throng were some that shuddered
and laughed by turns.
There were blameless men and women, too, drawn by curiosity and by
another and stronger magnet that they knew of. How would the condemned
meet their end? Would it be with craven timidity or with the
intrepidity of heroes, or again with the insensibility of brutes?
Death was at hand--the inexorable, the all-powerful. How could mortal
man encounter it face to face? This was the great problem then; it is
the great problem now.
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