Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 223=293.= the Christian Martyr
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When now he had stood there not many minutes, one of the doors of the vivaria was suddenly thrown back, and bounding forth with a roar that seemed to shake the walls of the theatre, a lion of huge dimensions leaped upon the arena. Majesty and power were inscribed upon his lordly limbs; and, as he stood there where he had first sprung, and looked round upon the multitude, how did his gentle eye and noble carriage, with which no one for a moment could associate meanness, or cruelty, or revenge, cast shame upon the human monsters assembled to behold a solitary, unarmed man torn limb from limb! When he had in this way looked upon that cloud of faces, he then turned, and moved round the arena through its whole circumference, still looking upwards upon those who filled the seats, not till he had come again to the point from which he started so much as noticing him who stood his victim in the midst. Then, as if apparently for the first time becoming conscious of his presence, he caught the form of Probus, and, moving slowly towards him, looked steadfastly upon him, receiving in return the settled gaze of the Christian. Standing there still a while, each looking upon the other, he then walked round him, then approached nearer, making suddenly, and for a moment, those motions which indicated the roused appetite; but, as it were, in the spirit of self-rebuke, he immediately retreated a few paces, and lay down in the sand, stretching out his head towards Probus, and closing his eyes, as if for sleep.
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=Lydia Maria Child, 1802-.= (Manual, p. 434.)
From "Autumnal Leaves."