a casino's gambling-room.
What an uniform and abject herd, huddled together with one despondent
impulse! Here and there, maybe, a person whom we know to be vastly
rich; yet we cannot conceive his calm as not the calm of inward
desperation; cannot conceive that he has anything to bless himself with
except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from his
breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisible
presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presence
of the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener sense of
lowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible symbol of the
majesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath him. And when I
say 'him' I include the whole judicial bench. Judges vary, no doubt.
Some are young, others old, by the calendar. But the old ones have an
air of physical incorruptibility--are 'well-preserved,' as by swathes
and spices; and the young ones are just as mummified as they. Some of
them are pleased to crack jokes; jokes of the sarcophagus, that twist
our lips to obsequious laughter, but send a chill through our souls.
There are 'strong' judges and weak ones (so barristers will tell you).
Perhaps--who knows?--Minos was a strong judge, and Aeacus and
Rhadamanthus were weak ones. But all three seem equally terrible to us.
And so seem, in virtue of their position, and of the manner and aspect
it invests them with, all the judges of our own high courts.

I hearken in awe to the toneless murmur in which My Lord comments on
the application in the case of 'Brown v. Robinson and Another.' He says
something about the Court of Crown Cases Reserved... Ah, what place on
this earth bears a name so mystically majestic? Even in the commonest
forensic phrases there is often this solemnity of cadence, always a
quaintness, that stirs the imagination... The grizzled junior dares
interject something 'with submission,' and is finally advised to see
'my learned brother in chambers.' 'As your Lordship pleases.'... We
pass to the business of the day. I settle myself to enjoy the keenest
form of aesthetic pleasure that is known to me.

Aesthetic, yes. In the law-courts one finds an art-form, as surely as
in the theatre. What is drama? Its theme is the actions of certain
opposed persons, historical or imagined, within a certain period of
time; and these actions, these characters, must be shown to us in a
succinct manner, must be so arranged that