The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

the beautiful daughter of Timandra, might not have been the

prototype of the ravishing Laura, daughter of the plebeian house of

Hawkins; but the orators add statesmen who were the purchasers of

the favors of the one, may have been as incorruptible as the

Republican statesmen who learned how to love and how to vote from

the sweet lips of the Washington lobbyist; and perhaps the modern

Lais would never have departed from the national Capital if there

had been there even one republican Xenocrates who resisted her

blandishments. But here the parallel: fails. Lais, wandering away

with the youth Rippostratus, is slain by the women who are jealous

of her charms. Laura, straying into her Thessaly with the youth

Brierly, slays her other lover and becomes the champion of the

wrongs of her sex.

Another journal began its editorial with less lyrical beauty, but with

equal force. It closed as follows:–

With Laura Hawkins, fair, fascinating and fatal, and with the

dissolute Colonel of a lost cause, who has reaped the harvest he

sowed, we have nothing to do. But as the curtain rises on this

awful tragedy, we catch a glimpse of the society at the capital

under this Administration, which we cannot contemplate without alarm

for the fate of the Republic.

A third newspaper took up the subject in a different tone. It said:–

Our repeated predictions are verified. The pernicious doctrines

which we have announced as prevailing in American society have been

again illustrated. The name of the city is becoming a reproach.

We may have done something in averting its ruin in our resolute

exposure of the Great Frauds; we shall not be deterred from

insisting that the outraged laws for the protection of human life

shall be vindicated now, so that a person can walk the streets or

enter the public houses, at least in the day-time, without the risk

of a bullet through his brain.

A fourth journal began its remarks as follows:–

The fullness with which we present our readers this morning the

details of the Selby-Hawkins homicide is a miracle of modern

journalism. Subsequent investigation can do little to fill out the

picture. It is the old story. A beautiful woman shoots her

absconding lover in cold-blood; and we shall doubtless learn in due

time that if she was not as mad as a hare in this month of March,

she was at least laboring under what is termed “momentary insanity.”

It would not be too much to say that upon the first publication of the

facts of the tragedy, there was an almost universal feeling of rage

against the murderess in the Tombs, and that reports of her beauty only

heightened the indignation. It was as if she presumed upon that and upon

her sex, to defy the law; and there was a fervent, hope that the law

would take its plain course.

Yet Laura was not without friends, and some of them very influential too.

She had in keeping a great many secrets and a great many reputations,

perhaps. Who shall set himself up to judge human motives. Why, indeed,

might we not feel pity for a woman whose brilliant career had been so

suddenly extinguished in misfortune and crime? Those who had known her

so well in Washington might find it impossible to believe that the

fascinating woman could have had murder in her heart, and would readily

give ear to the current sentimentality about the temporary aberration of

mind under the stress of personal calamity.

Senator Dilworthy, was greatly shocked, of course, but he was full of

charity for the erring.

“We shall all need mercy,” he said. Laura as an inmate of my family was

a most exemplary female, amiable, affectionate and truthful, perhaps too

fond of gaiety, and neglectful of the externals of religion, but a woman

of principle. She may have had experiences of which I am ignorant, but

she could not have gone to this extremity if she had been in her own

right mind.”

To the Senator’s credit be it said, he was willing to help Laura and her

family in this dreadful trial. She, herself, was not without money, for

the Washington lobbyist is not seldom more fortunate than the Washington

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *