le! she placed her rosy fingers on his forest of crisp
hair. Wool when touched gives an impression of softness. Dea touched a
lamb which she knew to be a lion. Her whole heart poured out an
ineffable love. She felt out of danger--she had found her saviour. The
public believed that they saw the contrary. To the spectators the being
loved was Gwynplaine, and the saviour was Dea. What matters? thought
Ursus, to whom the heart of Dea was visible. And Dea, reassured,
consoled and delighted, adored the angel whilst the people contemplated
the monster, and endured, fascinated herself as well, though in the
opposite sense, that dread Promethean laugh.

True love is never weary. Being all soul it cannot cool. A brazier comes
to be full of cinders; not so a star. Her exquisite impressions were
renewed every evening for Dea, and she was ready to weep with tenderness
whilst the audience was in convulsions of laughter. Those around her
were but joyful; she was happy.

The sensation of gaiety due to the sudden shock caused by the rictus of
Gwynplaine was evidently not intended by Ursus. He would have preferred
more smiles and less laughter, and more of a literary triumph. But
success consoles. He reconciled himself every evening to his excessive
triumph, as he counted how many shillings the piles of farthings made,
and how many pounds the piles of shillings; and besides, he said, after
all, when the laugh had passed, "Chaos Vanquished" would be found in the
depths of their minds, and something of it would remain there.

Perhaps he was not altogether wrong: the foundations of a work settle
down in the mind of the public. The truth is, that the populace,
attentive to the wolf, the bear, to the man, then to the music, to the
howlings governed by harmony, to the night dissipated by dawn, to the
chant releasing the light, accepted with a confused, dull sympathy, and
with a certain emotional respect, the dramatic poem of "Chaos
Vanquished," the victory of spirit over matter, ending with the joy of
man.

Such were the vulgar pleasures of the people.

They sufficed them. The people had not the means of going to the noble
matches of the gentry, and could not, like lords and gentlemen, bet a
thousand guineas on Helmsgail against Phelem-ghe-madone.

CHAPTER X.

AN OUTSIDER'S VIEW OF MEN AND THINGS.

Man has a notion of revenging himself on that which pleases him. Hence
the contempt felt for the comedian.

This being charms me