Lucky the prince upon whose eyelids Oberon has
dropped the magic philtre.
In the gallery of a minor Continental town I have forgotten, hangs a
picture that lives with me. The painting I cannot recall, whether
good or bad; artists must forgive me for remembering only the
subject. It shows a man, crucified by the roadside. No martyr he.
If ever a man deserved hanging it was this one. So much the artist
has made clear. The face, even under its mask of agony, is an evil,
treacherous face. A peasant girl clings to the cross; she stands
tip-toe upon a patient donkey, straining her face upward for the
half-dead man to stoop and kiss her lips.
Thief, coward, blackguard, they are stamped upon his face, but UNDER
the face, under the evil outside? Is there no remnant of manhood-
-nothing tender, nothing, true? A woman has crept to the cross to
kiss him: no evidence in his favour, my Lord? Love is blind-aye,
to our faults. Heaven help us all; Love's eyes would be sore indeed
if it were not so. But for the good that is in us her eyes are
keen. You, crucified blackguard, stand forth. A hundred witnesses
have given their evidence against you. Are there none to give
evidence for him? A woman, great Judge, who loved him.
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