The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-02-01
ugly AND
IGNORANT
Nine. Humbert Had Very
Peculiar Qualifications.
COMPARED TO NAPOLEON
7. p. O'Connor Writes of Her
Childhood.
COMPARED TO NAPOLEON


nor's newest publication T. P.'s Weekly
of Jan. 2.
cat the present moment the eyes o
Europe are directed on the extraordinar1
woman who may be regarded as the so!
author OF the greatest fraud of moder'
times The arrest of this woman in ;
suburb of Madrid together with the mem
bers of her astonishing family, draws thu
limelight once more upon her complies
character. OF her sister and her daugh
ter her husband and her other relatives
i take no account; but the woman
herself, Nine. Hun,bert, presents such AZ
extraordinary study in character exceed
ing the widest dreams OF noyelists. thai
/ shall endeavor to present 1t in out
line AS it happens, 1 have already done
this in a little book called THE Phantom
Millions and as l am much of the opin-
ion which Mr.. John Morley once uttered
that a writer cannot fairly be expected
TO find new language for that which
he has already expressed, L shall offer an
apology for recalling Words which left
my pen some months ago.
There is nothing in the birth of this
woman to explain her tremendous sue
cess She is the child of poverty
stricken and not very reputable peas
ants; she is not a Princess RadziwlIl
standing almost on the steps of throne.
and with the noble blood Of Russia aid
Germany in her veins. She is not even
a De la Motto, the heroine Of the neck
lace scandal which helped pood Marie
Antoinette on to the guillotine: for De la
Crrip
daughter of kings; had received the edu-
cation of a convent. was a gen1lewoman,
though fallen one Therese Daurisnac,
had been brought M as a peasant. ana
she remains a peasant. She has never
succeeded in speaking dramatically and
she has the dreaded pronunciation and
accent of the Gascon peasant
She has only to open her mouth and
YOU know that she is common in origin,
common in mind, common in everything.
She herself is so conscious of this that
now and then she laughs-a little grim
". perhaps--but she laughs at her own
defects Once she asked celebrated &C
t--s TO teach her how to recite certain
poem, romantic ana melodious; and when
the tell tale smile of the actress pointed TO
tween the refinement of the words ard
the horror and vulgarity of her accent,
she excused herself somewhat awkwardly
b. the statement that she only desired
TO attempt that task because she wanted
to please the husband she adored.
She has always had other physical and
mental peculiarities which have helped
to increase tie sense OF the unSainliness
and commences. Through some thick
ening OF her tongue she had lisp whicl
disabled her from p-onouEcirS properly
a number of words. And the expressi'
OF her face could be made to look dull
and vacuous that it was impossible to
suppose her anything but simple, cred
ulous peasant-the foredoomed victim of
every joke and of every scoundrel.
All peasants are supposed by the Par
isian to be more or less stupid; but no
peasant was ever 50 sturii as Therese
Daurignac looked. Yet some of I
physical and other disadvantages We
among the most potent of her weapons
in her great armory of deceit and fraud
A lisp, accompanied as it was in her casa
by something of a stutter, is always use
ful to the rogue; the lisp especially in a
woman's mouth, increases the sense of
her simplicity, and the stutter has always
proved useful TO the male or female vii
lain-it gives them time to find the words
by which they conceal their thoughts or
explain their contradictions
The forehead is high and smooth: the
hair is brushed back from it, so that it
is all displayed; the complexion is pal
lid; the eyes, though they are black, do
not seem to have struck anybody by
their briiliancy: in fact, commences and
commonpleceness these are the dominent
notes of everything about the woman
Sufficiently slender in her youth, she de-
veloped in middle age the stoutness which
IS the Nemesis of the middle age of so
many French women. And this obesity
helped further TO accentuate the common
ness of her appearance. She looked either
like the typical cook or the typical small
khopkkeeper who sits and pants behind
a cashiers desk in SO many French shops.
One French writer who knew her well
says that when you looked at her ample
waist YOU were rather surprised not TO
see there the bunch of keys which is the
symbol Of the burgeoise housekeeper
Others who knew the woman for years
never paid much attention to her She
seemed simply a vulgar nullity. a dressed
up peasant. one of the common and sense
less rich whose good fortune seems an Of
Tense
\ woman can be illiteJate and have a
vile accent and yet display the strength
of her intellect in her converse ton. II
was not 50 with Therese Daurigrac.
Her conversation. Ike her person. was
common ard perhaps commonplace; IL
was vsluble. turhid. incoherent: it re-
vealed brutality OF ideas and cf char
scter; the fish-fleg evidently Law near the
surface. and when the occasion REQUIRED
the iish-flag burst forth and there sushe,i
out torrent of defiant. vituperatIo.,
which shocked. Mortified and often af
frighted. IL was then. perhaps. that keen
observers had some suspicion OF all the
boundless force that uuderiay al his
commences and conmcnplsceaess.
Essentially Tfersse Daurignac was a
great temperament: that AZ :he key to
the whole mystery. How ,an / deiinc
what is meant by temperament. csoc-
cially in a woman? ! can no ncrs OK
plain it and its effect in the case Of
Nine. Hunbert than In the case OF Ma
poleon. When ne. At tweaty-six. was
appointed Commander-in-Chief OF the
army in Italy. he was able 10 COW by
one look % his terrible eye all the Gen
erals. old and Young. whose dissppoint-
ed ambition and burning and correding
envy would have been as mcrciful 20
him as though he were lamb and they
cage OF tigers. There are mysteries in
the sbysses OF our nature. Ike the So
crets OF love between men and women.
which lie teo deep fer full explanation