Year: 1874

quendone, which was the scene of DR.. Ox's
celebrated experiment with oxyhydric gas.
All the world knows that the Flemings are
patient people, who do everything with such
extreme deliberation that they can scarcely
accomplish in a week what anybody else
would do in an hour The population of
Quiquendone were model Flemings till DR..
Ok, on the pretence of lighting the town,
saturated the atmosphere with pure oxygen,
and SO set everybody frantic According to
that veracious historian, Jules Verne, it was
not possible to sing more than single act of
an opera in an evening and at the same time,
satisfy Quiquendonian taste. AT the theatre
the vivaces Jagged like real adagios, and the
allegros were slower than the andantes in
other countries; but on the night when DR..
Ok tried his first experiment the fourth act Of
"Les Huguenots, which formerly lasted six
hours, was sung in eighteen minutes of frantic
melody. Soon the once quiet town was wild
with excitement, and even the animal and
vegetable Kingdoms were subjected to the
mysterious influence. The condition Of the
people was one of half-rabid intoxication,
from which there was no relief till DR.. Ox's
gas works blew up, when all things resumed
their old proportions and men and women
got back their phlegmatic habits. If Brook
lyn is the real Quiquendone, Plymouth church
was the oxyhydric laboratory Mr.. Beecher
was the original Dr.. Ok, and, like the hero of
the story, became infected with his own
oxygen. Poor Mrs. Tilton was the Tatane-
1~.k.l I, oHn
the chemist, rather than upon Passauf, the
commis;ary of police. And Theodore Tilton
was DIR. Oxs assistant, Gedeon Ygene, who
helped to prepare the gas, and then blew up
the gas works. The parallel is complete, but
the fantastic catastrophe of the fiction has be-
come real tragedy, and, though the men
suffer in reputation and the good opinion of
their fellows, it is the woman who is the real
victim.


In all the history of misfortune we never
read more plaintive story than Mrs Til
toms. Between these two men, each of
whom moulded her to his will, she was as
plastic as clay. As she has described herself,
she was terribly unhappy woman. Her
husband made her home a blight. Her
spiritual guide and pastor, knowingly or un-
knowingly, made the blight curse. She
lived in an atmosphere of pure oxygen, in
which there was not an atom of hydrogenic
comfort and beauty. Even if she fell, it was
only as on angel might fall but whatever be
the truth in that regard she has, indeed been
compelled ''to live on the sharp and rugged
edge of anxiety, remorse, fear, despair. She
was not so much as allowed to put on the
appearance Of serenity and happiness. At one
time her husband stood by her bedside ex-
torting from her confession of criminality.
Another man, if he had believed what she
wrote, would have killed her seducer. Then
came Mr.. Beecher, who found her ''upon her
bed. white as marble, with closed eyes, as in
trance, and with her hands upon her bosom,
palm to palm, like one in prayer" GAS
look back upon it, somewhat fippantly says
Mr., Beecher, "the picture is like some forms
carved in marble that had seen upon monu-
ments in Europe" It was picture of wo-
man wronged and suffering as no woman had
ever suffered before, and her childish moan,
"What can do?" is the condemnation of





heart between them as football in their plny.
It was Antenor and Agamemnon outwitting
each other, but carefully stipulating that the
one should be saved and the other profted,
whatever became Of the wretched Helen.
What right had these two msn to stand sepa-
rately by the bedside of that feeble woman,
crazed in the immensity of their quarrel and
her own weakness, and demand, each in his
turn, the written testimony which was to de-
stroy her? Itwas wrong to turn fralty into
q virtue and make us feel the profoundest
compassion for the victim Of the contest be-
tween these powerful combatants. Mrs. Til
ton must, indeed, have been good woman.
or she could not have so acted as to injure
herself and wrong others while two fierce men
quarrelled over her misfortune. SO far as she
is concerned it is the saddest theme of which
poet ever sung or composer set the melodies
of sorrow.


Looking back over this domestic tragedy by
the aid of all the light that has been shed
upon it we can see no sign of brightness and
beauty except in the sufferings of the woman
The mad scenes of which we get glimpses on
the lyric and dramatic stage are but tinselled
grief to hers, even when the imagination
makes the illusion completest. 1t is only since
Mr.. Beecher's statement was published that
we are able to realize what was meant by the
allusion to ''the poor child lying there and
praying with her folded hands," If she was
guilty of all that her husband charges her
with he made her not less miserable than ;f
he had placed a scarlet letter on her bosom to
proclaim her an adulteress to all the world. If
she was innocent we have no words to con-
denim the crime Of her husband; but even
then Mr.. Beccher has trifed with her honor
and his own by his bargaining and letter
writing and, worst of all, by his payments of
money to conceal what never occurred. 1t