Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 346, August, 1844

About four weeks after our excursion in the neighbourhood of Hopefield, Clarke had received a letter, signed Thomas Tully, and stamped with the Natchez postmark. The contents were to the effect that his child was still living, that the writer of the letter knew where he was, and that, if Mr Clarke would enclose a fifty-dollar bank-note in his answer, he should receive further information. On receipt of the said sum, the writer said he would indicate a place to which Mrs Clarke might repair, unaccompanied, and there, upon payment of two hundred dollars more, the child should be delivered up.

Upon receiving this letter, the unfortunate father consulted with his friends and neighbours; and, by their advice, he wrote immediately to the postmaster at Natchez, informing him of the circumstances, and requesting that the person who applied for his answer might be detained. Four days afterwards, a man came to the window of the post-office, and enquired if there was any letter to the address of Thomas Tully. The postmaster pretended to be searching for the letter amongst a pile of others, and meanwhile a constable, who was in attendance, went round and captured the applicant. Upon the examination of the letter, it appeared that he was an Irishman, who had some time previously been hanging about Natchez, and had endeavoured to establish a school there. As he, however, had been unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, of where he came from, or what he had been doing up to that time, and as his manner and appearance were moreover in the highest degree suspicious and repulsive, he had not succeeded in his plan, and the few parents who sent their children to him had speedily withdrawn them. He was known at Natchez by the name of Thomas Tully, nor did he now deny that that was his name, or that he had sent the letter, which was written in a practised schoolmasterlike hand. It was further elicited that he was perfectly acquainted with the paths and roads between Natchez and Hopefield, and in the neighbourhood of those two places, as well as with the swamps, creeks, and rivers there adjacent. He was fully committed, till such time as the father of the stolen child should be made acquainted with the result of the examination.

In five days Clarke arrived with the negro boy Caesar. The whole town showed the greatest sympathy with the poor man's misfortune, the lawyers offered him their services free of charge, and a second examination of the prisoner took place. Every thing possible was done to induce the latter to confess what had become of the child; but to all questions he opposed an obstinate silence. The negro boy did not recognize him. At last he declared that he knew nothing of the stolen child, and that he had only written the letter in the hope of extorting money from the father. Hardly, however, had this been written down, when he turned to Clarke, with an infernal grin upon his countenance, and said, "You have persecuted and hunted me like a wild beast, but I will make you yet more wretched than you are able to make me." He then proceeded to inform him of a certain place where he would find his child's clothes.

Clarke immediately set out with a constable to the indicated spot, found the clothes, as he had been told he would do, and returned to Natchez. The accused was again put at the bar, and said, after frequently contradicting himself, that the child was still alive, but that, if they kept him longer in prison, it would inevitably die of hunger. Nothing could persuade him to say where the boy was, or to give one syllable of further explanation.

Meantime the quarter-sessions commenced, and the prisoner was brought up for trial. An immense concourse of persons had assembled to witness the proceedings in this remarkable case. Every thing was done to induce the accused to confess, but all in vain. Promises of free pardon, and even of reward, were made to him, if he told where the child was; but the man maintained an obstinate silence. He at last again changed his story, retracted his previous declaration as to his knowledge of where the boy was, said he had found the clothes, which he had recognised by the descriptions that had been every where advertised, and that it was that which had put it into his head to write to the father, in hopes of making his profit by so doing. In the absence of witnesses, although there was strong suspicion, there could be no proof of his having committed the crime in question. In America, circumstantial evidence is always received with extreme caution and reluctance; and even the fact of the child's clothes having been found in the place the prisoner had pointed out, was insufficient to induce the jury to find the latter guilty of the capital charge brought against him. Many of the lawyers, indeed, were of opinion, that the man's last story was true, that he had found the clothes, and, being a desperate character and in needy circumstances, had written the letter for purposes of extortion. Of this offence only was he found guilty, and condemned, as a vagrant and impostor, to a few months' imprisonment. By the American laws no severer punishment could be awarded. The one, however, was far from satisfying the public. There was something so infernal in the malignant sneer of the culprit, in the joy with which he contemplated the sufferings of the bereaved father, and the anxiety of the numerous friends of the latter, that a shudder of horror and disgust had frequently run through the court during the trial. Even the coolest and most practised lawyers had not been free from this emotion, and they declared that they had never witnessed such obduracy.

The inhabitants of Natchez, especially of the upper town, are, generally speaking, a highly intelligent and respectable class of people; but upon this occasion they lost all patience and self-control, and proceeded to an extreme measure, which only the peculiar circumstances of the case could in any degree justify. Without previous notice, they assembled in large numbers upon the night of the 31st of January, with a firm determination to correct for once the mildness of the laws, and to take the punishment o the criminal into their own hands. They opened the prison, brought out the culprit, and after tying him up, a number of stout negroes proceeded to flog him severely with whips of bullock's hide.

For a long time the man bore his punishment with extraordinary fortitude, and remained obstinately silent when questions were put to him concerning the stolen child. At last, however, he could bear the pain no longer, and promised a full confession. He named a house on the banks of the Mississippi, some fifty miles from Natchez, the owner of which, he said, knew where the child was to be found.

The sheriff had, of course, not been present at these Lynch-law proceedings, of which he was not aware till they were over, but of which he probably in secret did not entirely disapprove. No sooner, however, was he told of the confession that had been extorted from the prisoner, than he set off at once in the middle of the night, accompanied by Clarke, for the house that had been pointed out. They arrived there at noon on the following day, and found it inhabited by a respectable family, who had heard of the child having been stolen, but, beyond that, knew nothing of the matter. The mere suspicion of participation in such a crime, seemed in the highest degree painful and offensive to them. It was soon made evident that the prisoner had invented the story, in order to procure a cessation of his punishment of the previous night.

The fatigues and constant disappointments that poor Clarke had endured, had worn him out, and at last again stretched him on a bed of sickness. His life was for a long time despaired of, but he finally recovered, and shortly afterwards the term of imprisonment to which the child-stealer (for such the public persisted in considering Tully) had been condemned, expired. There was no pretext for detaining him, and he was set at liberty. Clarke was advised to endeavour to obtain from him, by money and good treatment, some information concerning the child. Both father and mother threw themselves at the man's feet, implored him to name his own reward, but to tell them what had become of their son.

"You have flogged and imprisoned me," replied the man, with one of his malicious grins; "you would have hung me if you could; you have done all in your power to make me miserable. It is now my turn."

And he obstinately refused to say a word on the subject of the lost child. He left town, accompanied by Clarke, who clung to him like his shadow, in the constant hope that he would at last make a revelation They crossed the Mississippi together, and on arriving behind Concordia, the bereaved father once more besought Tully to tell him what had become of his son, swearing that, if he did not do so, he would dog him day and night, but that he should never escape alive out of his hands. The man asked how long he would give him. "Six-and-thirty hours" was the reply Tully walked on for some time beside Clarke and his wife, apparently deep in thought. On a sudden he sprang upon the backwoodsman, snatched a pistol from his belt, and fired it at his head. The weapon missed fire. Tully saw that his murderous attempt had failed, and apprehensive doubtless of the punishment that it would entail, he leaped, without an instant's hesitation, into the deepest part of a creek by which they were walking. He sank immediately, the water closed over his head, and he did not once reappear. His body was found a couple of hours afterwards, but no trace was ever discovered of the Stolen Child.58

M. GIRARDIN

A word, before we speak of the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, on a topic which stands at the threshold of dramatic criticism. What is the nature of that imitation of life at which the drama aims, and of that illusion which it creates?

Before the time of Dr Johnson, the learned world were accustomed to insist upon the observance of the unities, on the ground that they were necessary to uphold the illusion of the theatre. The doctor, in his preface to Shakspeare, demolished this argument, by showing that the illusion they were declared so necessary to support, does not, in fact, exist. No man really believes that the stage before him is Rome, or that he is a contemporary of the Caesars. To insist, therefore, upon the unities of time and place, is to sacrifice to a grave make-belief the nobler ends of the drama—the development of character and passion. "The objection," says Dr Johnson, "arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that, when the play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this may imagine more. He that can take the stage at one time for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium."

If the delusion of the theatre, we will add, should, at certain moments, reach such a point that we may be said to believe ourselves transported to the place represented on the stage, this, not being a continuous delusion, cannot be disturbed by the mere changing of the scene; it will not the less take place at the promontory of Actium, because we had felt it, five minutes before, in the city of Alexandria.

Since the appearance of the celebrated preface to Shakspeare, it has been the habit of critics to speak, not of a delusion, but of an imitation, which is felt to be an imitation, and which pleases us in great part by this perceived resemblance to an original. "It will be asked," continues Dr Johnson, "how the drama moves, if it is not credited? It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited wherever it moves, as a just picture of a real original—as representing to the auditor what he would himself feel if he were to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes the heart is not that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed."59 * * * The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more. Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.

This appears to us a very indifferent account of the matter. In the far greater number of instances, we can never have formed any conception of an original of which the actor and the scene are supposed to present us a picture. Who that witnesses the play of Venice Preserved, has formed any other image of Jaffier or Pierre than what the actors are presenting to him, or may already, on some previous occasion, have presented to him? Even when the characters are strictly historical, the imagination is little better provided. The spectator does not refer to any faint conception in his own mind of a Brutus, or a Mark Antony, and then derive his pleasure from watching how closely the mimic representation imitates the original. Very often the scene must present something entirely new to the imagination, and yet the pleasure is not diminished on this account. A simple man, who has never seen the interior of a palace, never looked on royalty, never beheld even a veritable courtier, feels no embarrassment when he is suddenly called to witness the pomps and miseries of "imperial tragedy."

The imitation of the drama is not that of any specific original; it is a mimic scene, having human nature for its type. It has a life of its own, constructed from the materials which the records and observations of real life have supplied. In order to move us, it needs no reference to any recognised original. It is there in virtue of the vesture of humanity in which it is clothed, and makes its appeal at once and directly.

It is usual to speak of all the fine arts as imitative arts. The term is not always applicable, and, when most applicable, requires explanation. What does the poetry of sentiment imitate? What does a song imitate? How can the term be applied to all that class of poetry where the writer pours out his own reflections and feelings? The poetry of Wordsworth or of Burns can no more be said to be imitative, than the conversation of the same men, when, in their hours of intimate intercourse, the one may have given expression to his philanthropy, and the other to his friendship. But where the term is most applicable, it requires to be used guardedly. Even in painting and sculpture, the artist does not imitate the object in its totality—does not strive to make an approximation to a fac-simile—but he selects certain qualities of the object for his imitation. The painter confines himself to colour and outline; the sculptor abstracts the form, and give it us in the marble.

Accordingly, when we stand before a statue, we do not think of a man, and then of the statue as the imitation of this original; but the statue is itself clothed with some of the qualities of the human being, which give to the cold marble that half-life which we feel the moment we look upon it. In the same manner, when the dramatist puts his characters on the stage, they are not imitations of any definite originals, but they are invested with certain accidents and attributes of humanity, which give them at once the interest we feel in them, and set them living and moving in their own mimic world.

And this mimic world is capable of creating an illusion—not such as Dr Johnson combated—but of a kind he does not appear to have taken into account. The doctor is triumphant when he denies the existence of that theatrical delusion presupposed as a ground for the unities. We do not, as soon as the curtain rises, believe ourselves transported to Rome, nor do we take the actor upon his word, and believe him to be Caesar the moment he proclaims his imperial dignity. The illusion of the theatre springs directly from the passion with which we are infected, not from the outward pomp and circumstance of the stage. These, even on the most ignorant of spectators, produce barely the sentiment of wonder and surprise, never a belief in their reality. The real illusion of the drama begins, so to speak, not at the beginning, but at the end; it is the last result, the result of the last vivid word which sprung from the lips of the actor; and it diffuses a momentary reality over all that stage apparatus, animate and inanimate, which was there only as a preparation for that vivid word of the poet.

When the curtain rises, we see very plainly—quite unmistakeably—the boarded stage before us. It may fill with men and women most gorgeously attired, and these may proceed to declare their rank and condition, and the peculiar dangers which environ them, and still there is nothing better before us than the boarded stage and the talking actor. But, by and by, the word of passion is uttered, and the heart beats, and the wooden stage is seen no more, and the actor is forgotten in his griefs or his anger, and the fictitious position is a real life, and the pomp and circumstance of the scene, if not believed in, are no longer questioned. We are not perhaps at Rome, nor is that Mark Antony—for we never knew Mark Antony to recognise him—but this mimic world has assumed an independent life and reality of its own. When, indeed, the passion subsides, and the eloquence of the poet is mute, things revert to their matter-of-fact condition, the actor is again there, and the boards of the stage again become visible.

To the passage we last quoted from Dr Johnson, some other objections suggest themselves; but, as we have not quoted it in a polemical spirit, but merely to illustrate our own position, we have no wish to enter upon them. One remark only we will make, and that because it admits of a general application. Dr Johnson describes the sympathy we feel at the theatre, as the result of a reference to what our own personal feelings would be in the situation we see represented on the stage. The auditor represents to himself "what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes the heart is not, that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed." We do not think that, in order to sympathize with what takes place on the stage, or in real life, there is any necessity for this circuitous proceeding. We do not detect in ourselves this constant reference to our own personality, and, least of all, in those moments when we are most moved. It is enough that there be a vivid conception of any passion, for this passion to become for a moment our own. If this reference to our probable feelings, in such or such a position, were necessary, how is it that we men sympathize so promptly and so keenly in the distresses of the heroine? We certainly do not, for instance, set to work to imagine ourselves women and mothers—which would be a difficult exercise of the imagination—before we feel the grief of Constance for the loss of her child. In short, we at once assume to ourselves the passions of another; we do not wait, as it were, to try them on; to make experiment how we, with all our dispositions, natural and acquired, should feel in the supposed predicament.

It is far from our intention to give a full and methodical account of the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, the perusal of which led us to a reconsideration of some of our critical principles. They are far above mediocrity, distinguished by strong sense and vivid expression. Their principal feature is the just and animated protest they contain against the literary taste of the present day in France; a taste for the perverted, the horrible, the monstrous; a taste that welcomes Victor Hugo with outstretched arms, and retains but a frigid recollection of Racine. With this literary taste is intimately connected an unhealthy and feverish condition of the moral sentiments, against which the lecturer directs his most eloquent attacks; so that his book may be commended for its sound ethical as well as critical instruction. The circumstance that the lectures were delivered before the University of Paris, renders this strain of remark still more appropriate and useful.

Such a strain of remark, based as it is upon general principles, cannot be useless in our own country; although we do not suspect that the same perverted taste which meets its reproof in these lectures is common amongst us. Were we called upon to describe the malady under which our countrymen labour in respect to literary taste, we should describe it as a state of torpor and lethargy, rather than of virulent disease. It is indifference, more than any morbid taste, which an imaginative work would have to struggle against in this country. There is little necessity here to guard the public against any species of literary enthusiasm; certain writers of very dubious merit may be extensively read, but they are not esteemed. It is only necessary to listen to the conversation that goes on around us, to be convinced that the extensive circulation of a book has ceased to be a decisive proof even of its popularity. We seem too idle, or too busy, to give attention to a thoughtful literature which is not at the same time professional—and we have too much good sense amongst us to admire the sort of clever trash we are contented to read and to talk about. For something in leisure hours must be read. A book must be had, if only as a companion for the sofa, if only to place in the hand, as we place the ottoman under our feet, to steady and complete our repose.

We will at once introduce a striking quotation from the author before us, which has immediate reference to the Lucrèce Borgia of Victor Hugo. To those who have not read the play it is only necessary to observe, in order to understand what follows, that Victor Hugo, with that violent effort after a moral novelty which distinguishes him, has chosen to represent the infamous Lucretia Borgia as under the influence of maternal love, while in all other respects she fully sustains her odious and infernal reputation.

The author wished, he tells us in his preface, to retrieve the moral deformity of Lucretia Borgia by the beauty of the maternal sentiment; he wished, according to his own energetic expression, 'to place the mother in the monster.' Here let us make a distinction. I admire the tenderness which the most ferocious animals have for their offspring, and when the dying lioness covers her young with her wounded and bleeding body, I admire and am moved. But a woman who is a mother ought, in her tenderness to her children, to have more intelligence, more of elevation of thought, than the lioness. Instinct is not enough; there must be a sentiment, a sentiment which does not exclude, but perfects and purifies the instinct. Thus, when in Florence, a mother cast herself in desperation before the lion who had taken her child, and the lion, astonished at her despair, or perhaps comprehending it, replaced the infant at her feet, it was instinct which impelled the mother, and it was probably instinct in the lion which responded to her. But good instincts, whatever admirable actions they may occasionally produce, are but the germ and commencement of human virtues; they are indeed radically distinguished from human virtue by this, that, of themselves, however strong, they are sterile: a good instinct dwells by the side of a bad without effort to reform or to purify it, and equally without danger of being itself perverted. One virtue only in a vicious character might convert it entirely to virtue, as one vice only in a virtuous might lead it to utter depravation. But an instinct, however good, supports without disquietude the neighbourhood of evil, and it is thus that, in Lucretia Borgia, the mother and the monster are placed side by side, without affecting, without combating each other. Now there is nothing less natural, and nothing less dramatic than this mutual toleration. Characters wherein good and evil are mixed together, are dramatic, only because the conflict of opposite sentiments which takes place in the mind, is brought before the view of the spectator. But where, in Lucretia, is the struggle between good and evil? At what moment does the maternal virtue enlighten and purify this soul lost in darkness? When does this transfiguration take place, so marvellous and yet so natural? * * *