I open to you a door, through which you see--what? Pictures and
fountains, and mirrors and flowers? No: it is a lazar-house of
disease. The walls drip, drip, drip with the damps of sepulchres. The
victims, strewn over the floor, writhe and twist among each other in
contortions indescribable, holding up their ulcerous wounds,
tearing their matted hair, weeping tears of blood: some hooting with
revengeful cry; some howling with a maniac's fear; some chattering
with idiot's stare; some calling upon God; some calling upon fiends;
wasting away; thrusting each other back; mocking each other's pains;
tearing open each other's ulcers; dropping with the ichor of death!
The wider I open the door, the ghastlier the scene.--Worse the
horrors. More desperate recoils. Deeper curses. More blood. I can no
longer endure the vision, and I shut the door, and cover my eyes, and
turn my back, and cry, "God pity them!"
Some one may say, "What is the use of such an exposure as you propose
to make? Our families are all respectable.
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