In these lines I believed that I discerned the very God of the universe, the God whom men worship
Dans les infâmes jeux de leitr divin loisir
Le sitpplice de l'homme est leur premier plaisir.
Pour que leur œilf féroce a l'envi s'en repaisse
Des bourreaux devant eux en immolent sans cesse.
Tantôt ils font hitter, dans des combats affreux,
L'homme centre la brute et les hommes entre eux,
Aux longs ruisseaux de sang qui conlent de la veine,
Aux palpitations des membres sur l'arlène,
Se levant à demi de leurs lits de repos
Des frissons de plaisir frémissent sur leurs peaux.
Le cri de la torture est leur douce harmonie,
Et leur œil dans son œil boit sa lente agonie.
I charged the Supreme Power with a cruelty deliberate, ruthless, serene. Nero the tyrant once commanded a representation in grim earnest of the Flight of Icarus; and the unhappy boy who took the part, at his first attempt to fly, fell headlong beside the Emperor's couch and spattered him with blood and brains. For the Emperor, says Suetonius, perraro praesidere, ceterum accubans, parvis primum foraminibus, deinde toto podio adaperto, spectare consuerat. So I believed that on the stage of this world men agonised for the delight of one cruel intelligence which watched from behind the curtain of a private box.
II
In this unhappy condition of mind, then, I was lying in my library chair here at Sevenhays, at two o'clock on the morning of January 4th. I had just
