White Stains

16 PREFACE to the appalled Mathilde “ avec des yeux de flamme et de gestes incoherentes ” when, foaming at the mouth, and “ hurlant de blasphemes indicibles ”, he fell upon her with extraordinary violence of passion ; the door opened, officers appeared, the arrest was effected. He was committed to an asylum, for there could be no longer any doubt of his complete insanity ; for three weeks he had been raving with absinthe, and satyriasis. He survived his confinement no long time ; the burning of the asylum with its inmates was one of the most terrible events of the war of 1870. So died one of the most talented Englishmen of his century, a man who for wide knowledge of men and things was truly to be envied, yet one who sold his birthright for a mess of beastlier pottage than ever Esau guzzled, who sold soul and body to Satan for sheer love of sin, whose mere lust of perversion is so intense that it seems to absorb every other emotion and interest. Never since God woke light from chaos has such a tragedy been unrolled before men, step after step toward the lake of Fire ! At his house all his writings were seized, and, it is believed, destroyed. The single most fortunate exception is that of a superbly jewelled writing-case,