I had heard this woman termed “plain,” and I expected bony harshness and grimness⁠—something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the shadow of a royal Vashti; a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.

For a while⁠—a long while⁠—I thought it was only a woman, though an unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-and-by I recognised my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble strength⁠—for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the pit! They wrote hell on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood.

It was a marvellous sight, a mighty revelation.

It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral.