The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1907-10-05

country wascentered, and witnessed
the spectacle of the great and SON.
bre novel turned into living pres
ence before their eyes.
The coming engagement OF "Tess
of the D'Urbervilless' at the Ben
nington Opera House, makes "a
present day comparison of this pow
erful and moving story timely
topic. The result of the contrast
of fiction and living truth seems to
prove the old saying, "truth is
stranger than felton, has been
snpplanted by stronger axiom
the events of fiction are for the
greater part true to life.
1t is a far cry from the green
meadow of Wessex to the hard and
stony streets of New York. NOtwO
human beings could be less alike in
looks or situation than the big, fair
haired, white bOsOmed dairy maid,
the Tess of the novelist imagining,
and the dark. tressed black eyed little
Sicilian girl who faced twelve men
and battled for her life and freedom
II year ago last May, and yet the
story of their lives-the one woven
by the fancies of an authors brain
add the other woven of actual hap.
.penings-are almost identical. Mo-
tive for motive, incident for incident,
crisis for crisis, the real and the
imagined were the same.
When Tess meets her husband
after numbering her traducer, she
says in the story, ~ have done it,
| have done i'll don't know how.
He has come between us and ruined
us.r
In the trial it was shown that
Josephine Terranova's rejoicing that
she had killed the uncle and aunt
who had dragged her down into in.
fanny and shame, and driven her
husband from her, were the same.
81 have killed them,' said the
frail Italian girl, triumphantly, when
arrested for her crime. 81 have
done it to avenge my honor, and
now my husband will see that am
not what he thought l was, and he
| will take me back. Although she
did not say word for word the mad
outpOurings of poor Tess, yet the
general trend was strikingly the
same, 1t wssTess over again; the
woman Staying without remorse the
thing that stood between her ant
love; the woman avenging in hel
/ knowledge the wroRgdOne to her il
kgnMant youth.
"a Butthat was only one thing in tin
Iw0nderfiii resemblance. There wer
lmany others. TESTS mother handle,
her over 'tO.evil. JosephiIe's aun
cast her into the bottemless phi
Tess and Josephine alike sinned i
ignorance, and had the crown {
shame placed upon their yOun
brOws through no fault of their owl
\ Both the one on her marriage nigh
!, and the other o few days afterwar,
told unconscious of the dreadful pc
itent Of what they were saying, til
grim, dark story Of their lives
! their husbands, andboth men turne
, , away unable to forgive what the
! had heard. Both women suffered
: Gethsemane of broken despair, an
, both calmly and determined
stabbed to death those who ha
wronged them, believing that
: would make them clean before the
, husbands eyes, and both went fort
from the chamber of death rejOicin
: in what they had done.
1 This sameness was a wOnderfj
$ coincidence, and frequently con
mented upon, not only by the new
q papers during the height of I'll
trial, but by the counsel for I'll
a defence, who sighted the strane
: parallel in both the cross examin,
ton and in the eloquent appeal ft
!, the jury to acquit her. Had I'll
3 TerranOva girl been educated, ha
S the young Italian girl been able
;. read, it might have been reasone
I AS an explanation that she had rea
! Hardy's story and been influence