St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-10-26
DONNELLY'S DISAPPOINT-
MINT,

The pages of history or fiction afford
few examples ofintenser human feeling
titan DoNNELLY's disappointment at
the verdict i'll his great libel suit.
Hastily reported 10y men who had no
time to elaborate the words which fell
from his mouth, the story in itself has
as much dramatic fire as GEORGE ELI
OTIS picture of Gwendolen'S remorSe
at the death of her husband. The
wordy rhetOrician's skill at making the
worse appear the better cause. and at
cloaking the truth under veneer of
fiippancy and buster. has failed him at
this crisis. For once he appears i'll pub
lie stripped of his paint and tinsel, and
the world is treated to view of his
naked heart quivering with greed and
with distress at his dlscomforture.
The GLOBE is not inclined to laugh at
spectacle over which even gods might
weep. But to hear the Sage. whose wis
dom has hitherto been deemed sufficient
for the guidance Of the nation, berate
himself for mistakes of judgment like a
Starveling attorney, or smack his dry
jaws over the pelf which he had hoped
awaited him, is an experience as anus
ing as it is diSheartening. Who would
have supposed that the savior of society.
who has appeared TO have no other OBJ
ject in life but the good of his fellows,
should care for money? Who would
have thought that plaudits and rewards
which even the less worthy could at
tain should give him pleasure? Who
would have believed that any teStl-
monial could be dearer to one of his
lofty aspirations than the bald and SIM
pie yIndication with which the jury
presented him?
DoNNELLY has but himself to blame
that he has been so seriously misjudged.
The jnrymen who so quickly hit on 81
as compromise among their opinions,
varying from fifty thousand to nothing,
were not weak, nor were they block
heads, as he so loudly declares. They
did not mean, as he Indignantly sug-
gests, that 81 was the price of his char
acter. If he could be bought at all, they
knew it must be for a bigger sum than
this. They were not unfriendly to him
or careless of his reputation. But, as
he himself sadly puts it, ''they misunder-
stood the circumstances and condi-
TONS" They did not know that he
wanted "JoE WHEELoCK's money!"
They conceived of him as far above
such sordid motives. Nothing short of
the regeneration of society seemed to
them the purpose of his aspirations.
They imagined that he had turned on
his enemies not for his pockets sake,
but that his public usefulness might
not be interfered with. For this their
verdict was sufficient. How were they
to know that he sought for anything
else?
DoNNELI.Y has paid the penalty of
allowing himself to be idealiZed. No
one can see him or listen to his sublime
voice without soaring aioft in harmony
with his appearance aud his heavenly
cadences. No ordinary, everyday at
mOSphere of work and gain seems re-
fined enough for his sacred presence.
He distils an aroma of peculiar sane
tity. and those who see him instinctively
turn their thoughts to abstract princi
piles of great tenacity and the utmost
impracticability Ii he had wanted the
jury to think that he was one of them.
and of the earth earthy, he ought to
have put weights on his feet and muf
fled his voice with pebbles ere he ap-
peared in the court room. If he had
wanted the jury to think that he was
after JOE WHEELoCK's money" he
ought TO have said so. Would to heaven
he had done this. We might then have
been spared the tragic spectacle of his
disappointment. Ghastlier than the
slaughter of young children or the mid
night cough OF the phthisic, is it to
hear him muttering, "They thought L
did not want money, but | did"