The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-09-22
Our New York Letter.
Truth and Fiction-The Tale too highly
wrought-No change in the Situation.

Truth and Ficti0n-The Tale too highly
wrought-No change in the Situation.
New YORK, Septss21, 1874.
Mr. Tilton has produced story at last that
will attract wide attention, both for its merits
as literary composition, and for the startling
details with which it is replete. If it had be
gun ipstead of ending the series of "state-
ments" which have marked the course of this
"straDge eventful history" it would have caused
a profound sensation. AS it is, the discrmin-
ating reader will be inclined to criticise it, as
he would any emanation from writer of fic-
ton. and look at it rather as specimen of i'll
genuity than as compendium of facts.
Mr.. Tlton's first essay as a novelist was as
the author of romance called Tempest
Tossed" which was in all its parts and particu-
lars marvel of incredibility-in which he
dates his heroine's life from a shipwreck, and
keeps her and her parents af1oat on the disabled
vessel till she grows to be woman-some eigh-
teen years-supporting four persons and dog
all the while on the stores found among the
cargo-foatiRg at last to haven whittier all
the old friends of the family found their way in
an :nconceivably short space of time, notwith-
standing it was a deserted standard having
all the good folks rewarded and bad ones pun
ished according to the immemorial usage of
romanees.
| mention this book to illustrate Mr.. Tilton's
proficiency in the art of invention. One has
only to read this last effort of his genius to dis
cover that the talent grows by the exercise of
it. If there is any defect in the later tale, it is
that all the parts and links are supplied with
such precision and certainty-that all his char
acters respond in swift obedience to his sum-
mons-that each one says and does exactly
what it becomes necessary that he or she should
say and do to preserve the sequence of the mar
rative, and the whole thing has such an appear
ance of mechanism it becomes difficult to COM
prehend that it could ever have actually hap
pened. But that defect is inseparable from the
nature and purpose of the structure. He is
obliged to weave out of his materials story
that shall represent things which might have
really occurred. He has bona fide characters
at hand, and he simply wants to make dia-
loguA and pantomime for them. On the whole
he has done it ceverly. There is, now and then,
tendency to exagseration, an incursion into
VIC uOmdiu VI lHpOooiUllltcS-Uu LDdC is OILY
wheel he is carried away with the enthusiasm
of his calling, and loses his prudence through
excess of fervor. 1t is perfectly evident that
he derived exquisite pleasure from the excite
ment of preparing the document. He delights
in lightning and tempest. At the time when
the newspapers were haying him for his Wood
hull biography, his face frightened and his
heart bounded, as each new shaft of raillery
was aimed at him. To quote his own language,
he was meant for war;
1t is one of the many peculiarites of this
case, that the same witnesses are summoned to
sustain both prosecution and defense. His
wife, mother-in-law, Bessie Turner and Oliver
johnson are notably in this category He uses
them with the license of dramatist to height.
en- the effect of his situations. When he adj
duces the letters of which the first two were
wonderfully prolific, they furnis nothing to
substantiate his allegations. The italics with
which he so plentifully intersperses them do
not suffice to give to the printed words the
meanings to which he seeks to wrest them.
But when he supplies the language in which
their thoughts are expressed, it is always of the
most vigorous and ineligible kind. He makes
them substantiate the charge with a directness
and plainness of speech suspiciously at vari-
ance with the proverbial ambiguity which char
acterizes all their epistolary efforts. 1t strikes
one as passing strange that persons so ingAnu-
GUS and out spoken iu conversation-pot al
ways, according to his showing, observing the
restraints of deicacy-should suddenly assume
such an air of incomprehensibility when they
hSff r1ta g. Al
slant transformations are not usual in real life.
and seem altogether TN poss1pfs tv suufr=autnrs
as nguro II. UfIrS Drama
The conclusion to which am brought by a
diligent perusal Of this Statement" is that it
proves too much. 1t looks to me as if Mr.. Til
t)u. conscious of the weakness of his previous
efforts, and painfully alive TO the fatal persona
consequences in which he had involved himself.
had determined to make one last desperate eff
fort to accomplish his purpose of running Mr.
Beecher, so as to have q companion in his fall
70 this end he has taxed his ingenuity to the
utmost, and employed all his powers of imagin-
alton and rhetoric.
By skillful combination of materials and
free use OF his fancy he has fashioned narrative
il. (which truth and falsehood are so artfuIly
blended, that il is not'easy to separate them,
He has taken all the pains he could to invest
the recital with the calmness of a judicial re-
view, but in this he has been only partially sue
cessful, for the anger and bitterness with
which he is consumed, display themselves in
frequent outbursts of stormy passion.
The romance as you will see, occupies TWEEN
ty-five columns of the Daily Graphic, an illus
trated journal, the metropolitan organ of But
Ter, Jayne and Moulton. It contains
eighteen chapters. The introduction dwells
upon the early friendship of the writer fer Mr..
Beecher, and the intimacy of their relations.
The author then discourses upon the affection
ct his wife, the peace and happiness of his
home, and his own gentleness toward wife.
children and parents. He fixes the date of her
alleged confesson-July 3, 1S7O-but acknowl-
edges that for several weeks preceding, there
had been estrangement between them. and
that she had left her home in consequence of
the alienation, He says he had detected in
her "a tendency to deceit and falsehood' and
that ne wrote her letter during her absence, in
which he said she would forfeit his respect, 'the
moment she ceased to tell the truth,"-a letter
which as she told him, spierced her very soul. -
1t was at this opportune moment, and under
these favoring circumstances, that she returned
within an hour af
ter her arrival, impaired to him the secret she
had so long kept in her heart! Here is the
point at which there is an irreconcilable diver.
gence between the testimony of the husband and
the wife. Each admits there was "confes-
sion' made at that time. But there is a radi
Cal difference as to its purport. Mrs. Tilton
says "a like confession with hers Catherine
Gaunts) made to Mr.. Tilton in telling him
my love to my friend and PASTOR" When she
made her confession she had not read the story
OF Catherine Gaunt. Subsequently coming
across the book, while absent from home. and
discovering the exact resemblance between her
case and that of the heroine of the novel, she
wrote letter to her husband, in which she
tells him that she has seen her "sin' portrayed
in "a character Of felton, and points ont the
identity between her own actual experience
and the ideal picture of a chaste wife uncon.
sciously centering her affections on her spiritu-
al advicor