Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/56

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TIME AND TIDE.

of the hot smoke of the mouth of hell. Take this following for a general type of what they seek in death: one of the most laboured designs is of a man cut in two, downwards, by the sweep of a sword—one half of him falls towards the spectator; the other half is elaborately drawn in its section—giving the profile of the divided nose and lips; cleft jaw—breast—and entrails; and this is done with farther pollution and horror of intent in the circumstances, which I do not choose to describe—still less some other of the designs which seek for fantastic extreme of sin, as this for the utmost horror of death. But of all the 425, there is not one, which does not violate every instinct of decency and law of virtue or life, written in the human soul.

31. Now, my friend, among the many "Signs of the Times" the production of a book like this is a significant one: but it becomes more significant still when connected with the farther fact, that M. Gustave Dore, the designer of this series of plates, has just been received with loud