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ought to know the truth—such as you ought to know it . That is a beautiful dress you have on , very beautiful , far too beautiful for poor Jessy to wear . But when did you order it ? Was there time for human hands to make it before ' you must have it , ' for this very day ! And who set the finish to that beautiful dress ? Whose aching fingers put the last work into it ? Jessy ' s , there ; and when I took it from her , last night , she lay down to die !" The proud lady was silent ; her eyes bent upon the dying woman ,
without retort ; and her haughty features softened to a gaze of reflecting sorrow . For these English women have hearts in their bosoms , haughty and cold as they seem—at least , some have . Suddenly the lady ' s manner altered , as if she threw off some mantle of pride and restraint , and turning once more to the girl that brought her , with a low , simple , direct way of speaking , she said— " And what can be done , now ?" " One thing—to let pride of luxury come and do homage to want and
misery , when death raises the lowly above the high . " " I have done that . " " Next , to bring justice and consolation to parting life . On that bed lies , half-conscious , the poor seamstress who died at her needle—it is a common end enough . But that same woman—not half your age—do you see her child ?" The lady bowed . " How much would you rate its life worth ? Why is it there at all ? Why come into the world only to look for a few uncertain days upon its misery ? Who called it ?" The girl paused , as a sigh from the dying woman summoned her attention ; but she went on , bent to make out the retribution , where redemption
could not come . " Lady Julia , do you know what it is to have temptations—hopes of the heart where no straight path of hope appears ? You cannot . If ever you are tempted—and you are—and you yield , your face tells it—you have not been driven by total wretchedness and despair . Love never visited you , in misery and privation , and endless toil ; never came from a distant world of pleasure and power ; never whispered into your wearied ear , that pleasure might in itself be a release from slavery ; never won you to one short dream of delirious delight , and then left you , back in that nightmare of pleasureless toil , to await the consequences of pleasure taken , pleasure granted , without bond exacted . But it did come so to poor Jessy there . "
The lady began to look impatient . I notice of these English , that they can never listen to any narrative of sufferings , save when they tell it of themselves . * ' You are looking at my hand , " said the girl , holding it out , to confess by the act * h » t i * -rrna rmgleas » "' out I was not deserted . Trouble and sorrow have I , but not despair . Bertrand , take the darling . " She gave her own baby to the young man , and stooped over the other ' s child . " Now , Lady Julia , look closer , and see if in this poor death-stricken little creature ' s face you can trace a proud likeness . Jessy on her deserted deathbed has conceived a longing to see the father of her child . Both will be gone soon , and why should not that little wish be gratified ? Would the father grudge that trouble ?—he took more to persuade Jessy out of her hard poverty into his pleasure ! Would he be too much of a coward to visit this poor room where suffering and ghastly death have succeeded love ?"
Lady Julia looked to see if an answer was expected to questions that seemed so abstract . " Do not be amazed , for it is you only can answer . Poor Jessy ' s last toil was to finish the gown you wear . The father of her child is your son . " A dead silence followed this somewhat startling announcement , and the girl evidently took a pleasure , which Bertrand shared , in driving home the knife . Doubly had poor Jessy ' s life been sacrificed to the pleasure of Lady Julia ' s blood . The lady stooped down and kissed the child , not hastily ; and then stooping lover , she kissed the moveless hand of its mother . " Send for him , " said the girl .
" I will fetch him , " said Lady Julia , rising . " I sec the likeness . But take this , my good girl ; " and she tried to force her purse into the reproachcr ' s hand . " It is too late . "
" I hope not—skilful aid ; and , " she added , yielding to the hopelessness plainly written on the aspect of that cheerless room— " if not for them , sit least you yourself , and your—" With u passionate burst of tears the girl clashed the clanking purse upon the ground , and then kneeling to the dying woman , whom her grief startled from the apathy of death , she cast her arinti over her , and cried , " Forgive ine , . Jessy- — -my darling Jessy- I could not liolp it , dear ; I would not bear that offered to me , here , by your bedside . Oe . t better , dear , for he will come ; and do not tell me that 1 killed you by my wicked though tlessness . " Jessy ' s fsiint lips moved with a smile that died in coining . The girl laid her head upon her friend , and gently sobbed .
. . ¦ 1 1 1 1 A .... A . .. I 1 15 " ¦ W I V 1 A ! "> . _ . A . _ . 1 _ U T " For hesiven ' s sake try to calm her , " Haiil Lady Julia to Bcrtrand ; "I will go to IVtch him . 1 will bring him mysolf . " She left the room with a head less proudly lifted than when Hhe entered it , but I thought her face looked far more beautiful in its downcast tears than when it was confronting the public gaze in the great portico .
Bertrand , who is a young Frenchman , bred m England , told me the whole story ; but there is little more to add . We left Jessy to die alone , with the father of her dead child , who was honourably brought back to her . And some atonement has been made to Anna , her friend . I think she had the subscription meant for " Uncle Tom , " many times multiplied ; but that did not , truth makes me confess , rein her tongue when she found that Jessy could no longer be disturbed by the reproaches showered upon the recreant lover . I must confess , too , that he boldly did his duty in
undergoing the penance ; which I believe few of these demoralized young Englishmen would have had the manliness to bear , and whicli it relieved Anna ' s heart to inflict . Also , he did duty in attending as mourner when we buried Jessy . But how much better if he had thought of his penance before ; how much better if those well-meaning , easy-going reformers , who set up to teach us in America how to put the world to rights at a blow , would think of the path by which their own luxuries reach their own dainty selves ! How many Jessys , each following the other as she perishes , it takes to clothe one Lady Julia through all the seasons she enjoys !
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THE EASTER PIECES . You may have observed , that , at the great dramatic periods of Christmas and Easter , when every theatre puts forth its weakness , and loudly beats the drum , to attract the public ear , I bravely desert my post , and fly th $ danger of confronting so many consecutive nights . The charms pi country houses , at all times alluring , become doubly alluring then . This Easter , I " screwed my courage to the sticking-ip \ &ce , " as the Swan somewhat inappropriately says , ( if he did say it , ) and , declining a most agreeable visit , resolved to let Easter do its worst ! To appreciate this heroism , you must cast your eye over the announcements of Easter preparations , and ask yourself how you would relish the duty of spending a whole week with Charles Kean and the ceiling walker , with Slingsby Lawrence , in nine acts , and " sterling comedies , " at the
Hatmaeket ; with bandit stories , and Webster ' s " Adeiphi hits I" At Dktjey Lane , we were threatened with a version of La Dame aux Chmilias , but the Lord Chamberlain refused a licence to this unhealthy idealization of one of the worst evils of our social life . Paris may delight in such pictures , but London , thank God ! has still enough instinctive repulsion against pruriency not to tolerate them . I declare I know of few things in the way of fiction , more utterly wrong , unwholesome , and immoral , than this Dame aux Camelias , which has been the success of the last ten years ! How men who have within them the capacity for high and deep feelings , who think of Love as something more than a " heat and fervour of the blood , " can be delighted at this hideous parody of
passion , and tolerate this idealization , of corruption , would be a mystery , if one did not know the strange contradictions even honest minds will allow to live side by side , and if one did not know the effects of education—education on this point profoundly and perniciously wrong . Even those who think the evil a sad necessity , must own that it is an evil , and a very sad necessity , —too sad to be treated lightly , too hideous to be poetised and made " interesting . " The banale excuse that " such things are , " is no justification ; every Hospital has its horrible realities , which it must keep from the public eye , and which Art refuses to acknowledge as materials . I am not prudish , nor easily alarmed , by what are called " dangerous " subjects , but this subject I protest against with all my might;—a subject
not only unfit to bo brought before our sisters and our wives , out unfit to be brought before ourselves . The very skill with which young Dumas has treated it , makes his crime the greater , because it tends to confuse the moral sense , by exciting the sympathy of an audience . I do not place much faith in the " danger" of love stories teaching how to sin , according to Ovid , —peccare doaentes , —but I do believe that the false education men receive , in the direction of the sexual sentiment , is pandered to by stories such as this of the consumptive courtesan and her ignoble lover ; and , if any Lord Chamberlain bo supine enough to licence it , —but there is no fear !
I have been getting serious , angry ; let me turn to other subjects ; and first of the dramatic tale in nine chapters ,
A STRANGE HISTORY , produced at the Lyceum . Strange enough ! but strangeness ia not enough ; and this piece , with all its unsurpassed beauty of scenery ana dresses , with its " effects , " with several dramatic situations , wanta the first quality demanded by a work of its length—culminating interest . There are materials in abundance , but there is not a good dramo in a Strange History ; and I seize this opportunity of giving Slingaby Lawrence a bit of my mind ( he wont take it ; authors never do ; the " envy of critics 1 " ) an regards construction . ( I say nothing of his collaborateur , Charles Mathews ; qua diable ! if I make him angry , he may
print a broadside a « ain » t ine !) In dramatic art—because it is dramatic and sets forth a story in action —there should be not only visible progress in the story , but that progress should culminate , and aw quickl y au possible . When once you havo taken your place in the railway carriage the- train should stop as seldom as may be . You are impatient to arrive . Let the scenery through winch you pass bo varied , and your fellow-travellers pleasant , but let tho train rush on . If you stop at every station , get up a quarrel with tho inspector , " chaff" tho young lady who hands you hot soup and impossible coffee- ^ - and by so doing delay the departure of tho train from each station—tta traveller , anxious to " arrive , becomes impatient . Now an audience never should get impatient . Arrive at your climax , or series of incidents leading to Ihe climax , as quickly as you oan , effectively .
Now this , O Slingshy I— this , O angry Lawrenco!—you have not done in a Slraw / e JItstoty ; and hence failure . As soon as you have excited fc strong interost in Christine , so tonchingly and admirably pj ^ yed % f
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April 2 , 1853 . ] THELEADER . 333
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Leader (1850-1860), April 2, 1853, page 333, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1980/page/21/
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