Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1907-02-11
THE THAW TRIAL.
Continued from Page One.)

life to which he now introduced her as
tn usual and ordinary course of most
persons in the world of glitter. success
and wealth. She was carefully trained.
in it by the most expert teacher. HIM
self man of world-known genius and
large means. And she was only 16.
All this must be remembered when
the district attorney lays bare, as he is
bound to do, the incidents of her life
which she has not yet revealed. She
cannot be judged as you would judge a
woman of % who, with fuller knowl-
edge Of life and character, with her
own character formed. would. for love.
for money, or for ambition, yield her
self.
Here was a girl, little girl, of en-
chanting lOveliness and purling ways,
being fitted, trained to perfection, for
the life that q man like Stanford White
would have her lead. So you perceive
the difference.
y different influence, could it have
trained her through that period, would
have uplifted and strengthened her,
would have made her like your sister,
and your sweetheart. But there was no
such influence around her.
When one hears her in the court room
giving her testimony. one thinks of all
this. 1t is unforgettable. And yester-
day it may have been that her testi-
mony made an impression a shade less
helpful to her than the tragic testimony
of the day before, because it revealed Il
little more of her outlook on life.
1t is not and it cannot be the out
~ -l,11{ xtstcn
fatherly protected girl; it cannot have
the same standards of comparison, the
same experiences, to judge by. What
she is the life that she was taught mas
made her; that and the natural. 1nno-
cent, girlsh soul of her, which must
still be somewhere within her and
struggling.
Apart from her history, it's woman
of this sort that men give their souls
for; not your great, strapping beauties
but wee, coniding, wholly feminine
creatures, with faces that suggest
heaven and are the surest lures to he'll.
1t is SO easy to imagine the soul of a
goddess behind such a face and shaping
it. Well, it might have been goddess
if ONLY a god had come in its path m
stead of a millionaire.
She looks like schoolgirl there on
the witness stand. She is p. Ard that
husband of hers who is being tried Tor
murder looks like college boy. he Is
IS. He is haggard, fearfully niagara.
but he doesn't look any older than she
is. and she is half a dozen years older
than she looks.
Sitting in the court room every day
one wonders what will be the influence
unon their lives, and other lives, OF
this tragedy of passion and this ordeal
of dissection in which the law lays
bare the very nerves of all the plot
and counterpart and secret action.
Suppose Thaw is freed-what a life
is before him and before her; what
memories. What will they think When
they are alone together. Facing the
world is not the most difficult thing.
With their wealth there are various
means for facing it or avoiding IL.
Facing themselves will be the difficult
business, for they have touched so
many lives with the horror of their
own.
His mother. His sisters and their
families. Not the scandal merely. but
the sorrow, ana the trail OF insanity
over it all, and over them all, ana the
memories, and the right to remember.
which have been stolen from them.
Was all this worth while when
measured in the scales against the po-
session of nynph? No sane man
would assert it. And the two who
fought for the nymph would have
flouted the idea had it been presented
to them. But it was not presented to
them. Men don't stop to think In
these cases of the influence of their
lives upon other lives.
Some of the newspapers print pic
lures of her pressing handkerchief
to her eyes as she gives he" testimony
on the witness stand. Imagination. of
course is great power in art. The
artists have imagined the handkerchief
ard the tears. The girls self-possess-
ed manner and her readiness to answer
the probing questions of the counsel
really annoy some of the asgressively
virtuouS spectators and commentators.
She ought to weep, they say, she
ought to break down; if she had the
heart of a woman she would do so.
How little the professionally virtuous
understand! It's not at the moment
Of stress and strain, before the eyes of
all the world, that tears inevitably
come; it's afterwards in the silence
and alone. What is proved because
you do not win in public?
If the girl breaks down next week,
when the district attorney cross exam
ines her, that will be another matter.
His will be the voice of an enraged
state demanding punishment, not mer-
cy.
Jerome probably approaches that
task Of cross-examination of this girl
with greater disrelish than he has ev-
er felt for any task within his expert
ence. He must smother and submerge
his tenderest human feelings. He is a
gentleman, but he must pursue his du-
ty like memorable, flinty-hearted fate.
During the two days when the girl
an, e,&r - IL To. ,,r.se