absorption at the place where the puppy lay or the place where the
policemen stood. An appreciable interval elapses before the "street
accident" has entirely ceased to exist as a phenomenon.

The members of the crowd follow their noses, and during the course of
the day remark to acquaintances:

"Saw a dog run over by a motor-bus in the Fulham Road this morning!
Killed dead!"

And that is all they do remark. That is all they have witnessed. They
will not, and could not, give intelligible and interesting particulars
of the affair (unless it were as to the breed of the dog or the number
of the bus-service). They have watched a dog run over. They analyse
neither their sensations nor the phenomenon. They have witnessed it
whole, as a bad writer uses a _cliché_. They have observed--that is to
say, they have really seen--nothing.




II


It will be well for us not to assume an attitude of condescension
towards the crowd. Because in the matter of looking without seeing we
are all about equal. We all go to and fro in a state of the observing
faculties which somewhat resembles coma. We are all content to look and
not see.