England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
As usual in such cases, the excitement in the Court communicated itself
to the crowd outside in the street. The general opinion here--led, as it
was supposed, by one of the clerks or other inferior persons connected
with the legal proceedings--was decidedly adverse to the prisoner’s
chance of escaping a sentence of death. “If the letters and the Diary
are read,” said the brutal spokesman of the mob, “the letters and the
Diary will hang him.”
On the return of the Judges into Court, it was announced that they had
decided, by a majority of two to one, on permitting the documents in
dispute to be produced in evidence. Each of the Judges, in turn, gave
his reasons for the decision at which he had arrived. This done, the
Trial proceeded. The reading of the extracts from the letters and the
extracts from the Diary began.
The first letters produced were the letters found in the Indian cabinet
in Mrs. Eustace Macallan’s room. They were addressed to the deceased
lady by intimate (female) friends of hers, with whom she was accustomed
to correspond. Three separate extracts from letters written by three
different correspondents were selected to be read in Court.
FIRST CORRESPONDENT: “I despair, my dearest Sara, of being able to tell
you how your last letter has distressed me. Pray forgive me if I own to
thinking that your very sensitive nature exaggerates or misinterprets,
quite unconsciously, of course, the neglect that you experience at the
hands of your husband. I cannot say anything about _his_ peculiarities
of character, because I am not well enough acquainted with him to know
what they are. But, my dear, I am much older than you, and I have had a
much longer experience than yours of what somebody calls ‘the lights and
shadows of married life.’ Speaking from that experience, I must tell you
what I have observed. Young married women, like you, who are devotedly
attached to their husbands, are apt to make one very serious mistake. As
a rule, they all expect too much from their husbands. Men, my poor Sara,
are not like _us._ Their love, even when it is quite sincere, is not
like our love. It does not last as it does with us. It is not the
one hope and one thought of their lives, as it is with us. We have no
alternative, even when we most truly respect and love them, but to make
allowance for this difference between the man’s nature and the woman’s.
I do not for one moment excuse your husband’s coldness. He is wrong,
for example, in never looking at you when he speaks to you, and in
never noticing the efforts that you make to please him. He is worse than
wrong--he is really cruel, if you like--in never returning your kiss
when you kiss him. But, my dear, are you quite sure that he is always
_designedly_ cold and cruel? May not his conduct be sometimes the
result of troubles and anxieties which weigh on his mind, and which are
troubles and anxieties that you cannot share? If you try to look at his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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