horrid mess of the cart, and passes on. And only that
which is immortal and divine of the puppy remains behind, floating
perhaps like an invisible vapour over the scene of the tragedy.

The crowd is tireless, all eyes. The four principals still converse and
write. Nobody in the crowd comprehends what they are about. At length
the driver separates himself, but is drawn back, and a new parley is
commenced. But everything ends. The policemen turn on their immense
heels. The driver and conductor race towards the motor-bus. The bell
rings, the motor-bus, quite empty, disappears snorting round the corner
into Walham Green. The crowd is now lessening. But it separates with
reluctance, many of its members continuing to stare with intense
absorption at the place where the puppy lay or the place where the
policemen stood. An appreciable interval elapses before the "street
accident" has entirely ceased to exist as a phenomenon.

The members of the crowd follow their noses, and during the course of
the day remark to acquaintances:

"Saw a dog run over by a motor-bus in the Fulham Road this morning!
Killed dead!"

And that is all they do remark. That is all they have witnessed. They
will not, and could not, give intelligible and interesting particulars
of the affair (unless it were as to the breed of the dog or the number
of the bus-service). They have watched a dog run over. They analyse
neither their sensations nor the phenomenon. They have witnessed it
whole, as a bad writer uses a _cliche_. They have observed--that is to
say, they have really seen--nothing.

II

It will be well for us not to assume an attitude of condescension
towards the crowd. Because in the matter of looking without seeing we
are all about equal. We all go to and fro in a state of the observing
faculties which somewhat resembles coma. We are all content to look and
not see.

And if and when, having comprehended that the _role_ of observer is not
passive but active, we determine by an effort to rouse ourselves from
the coma and really to see the spectacle of the world (a spectacle
surpassing circuses and even street accidents in sustained dramatic
interest), we shall discover, slowly in the course of time, that the act
of seeing, which seems so easy, is not so easy as it seems. Let a man
resolve: "I will keep my eyes open on the way to the office of a
morning," and the probability if that for many mornings he will see
naught that is not trivi