The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1870-06-09
[From the Atlantic Monthly.l
THE LAUSON TRAGEDY.

Cupid and Psyche! The young man
and the young woman who are in love
with each other! The couple which is
constantly vanishing and constantly
reappearing which has filed millions
of various situations, and yet is always
the same; symbolizing, and one might
almost say embodying, the doctrine of
the transmigration Of souls acting a
drama of endless repetitiOns, with in.
Vulnerable spectators
What would the story-readihg world
yes, and what would the great world
ofhumanity--do without these two fig
ures7 They are more lasting, they are
more important, and they are more
fascinating than even the crowned and
laurelled images of heroes and sages.
When men shall have forgotten Alex
ander and Socrates, Napoleon aud Hum
boldt, they will still gather around this
imperiShable group, the youth and the
girl who are in love. Without them
our kind would cease TO be; at one
time or another we are all of US identi-
fed with them in spirit thus both rea-
son and sympathy cause us to be inter-
ested in their milhon-fold repeated
story.
We have the two before US. The
girl, dark and dark. k.eyed, with Oriental
features, and an expression which one
is tempted to describe by some such
epithet as imperial, is Bessie Barron,
the orphan granddaughter Of Squire
Thomas Lauson of Barbam, in Massa-
Chusetts. The youth, pale, chestnut
haired, and gray-eyed, with tall and
large and muscular build, is Henry Fos-
ter, not more than twenty-seven years
old, yet already professor in the sci
entifiC department of the university OF
Hampstead. They are standing on the
edge of rocky precipice, some seventy
feet in depth, from the foot Of which q
long sories of grassy slopes dsscends
into a wide, irregular valley, surround
ed by hills that almost deserve the name
of mountains. In the distance there
are villages, the nearest fully visible
even to its most insignificant buildings
others showing only few white CLEANS
through the openings of their elms, ,and
others still distinguishable by merely a
spire.
There has been talk such as affianced
couples indulge in; we must mention
this for the sake of truth, and we musl
omit it in mercy. "Lovers," declares
critic who has weight with us, care
habitually insipid, at least to us married
people," 1t was a man who said that;
no woman, it is believed, could utter
such condemnation Of her own heart;
no woman ever quite loses her interest
in the drama Of love- making. But oul
ofregard to such males as have drowned
their sentimentality in marriage we will
for the present, pass over the words o
tenderness and devotion, and only lis
ten when Professor Foster becomes
philosophical.
"What if / should throw myseI
down hero7" said Bessie Barron, aftel
a long look over the precipiCe, mean
while holding fast to guardian arm.
"You would commit suicide" wal
the reply of man whom we must ad'
nit to have been accurately informed
concerning the nature of actions like
the one specified.
Slightly disappointed at not hearing
the appeal, 10 my darling, don't thinl
OF such tbing!" Bessie remained ST.
lent moment, wondering if she wer'
silly or he cold-hearted. Did she catct
a glimmering of the fact that men d.
not crave small sensations ss womeI