Memorials and Other Papers, vol 1 | Page 2

otherwise be open to
misconstruction.

1. The paper on "Murder as one of the Fine Arts" [Footnote: Published
in the "Miscellaneous Essays."] seemed to exact from me some account
of Williams, the dreadful London murderer of the last generation; not
only because the amateurs had so much insisted on his merit as the
supreme of artists for grandeur of design and breadth of style; and
because, apart from this momentary connection with my paper, the man
himself merited a record for his matchless audacity, combined with so
much of snaky subtlety, and even insinuating amiableness, in his
demeanor; but also because, apart from the man himself, the works of
the man (those two of them especially which so profoundly impressed
the nation in 1812) were in themselves, for dramatic effect, the most
impressive on record. Southey pronounced their preeminence when he
said to me that they ranked amongst the few domestic events which, by
the depth and the expansion of horror attending them, had risen to the
dignity of a national interest. I may add that this interest benefited also
by the mystery which invested the murders; mystery as to various
points but especially as respected one important question, Had the
murderer any accomplice? [Footnote: Upon a large overbalance of
probabilities, it was, however, definitively agreed amongst amateurs
that Williams must have been alone in these atrocities. Meantime,
amongst the colorable presumptions on the other side was this:--Some
hours after the last murder, a man was apprehended at Barnet (the first
stage from London on a principal north road), encumbered with a
quantity of plate. How he came by it, or whither he was going, he
steadfastly refused to say. In the daily journals, which he was allowed
to see, he read with eagerness the police examinations of Williams; and
on the same day which announced the catastrophe of Williams, he also
committed suicide in his cell.] There was, therefore, reason enough,
both in the man's hellish character, and in the mystery which
surrounded him, for a Postscript [Footnote: Published in the "Note
Book."] to the original paper; since, in a lapse of forty-two years, both
the man and his deeds had faded away from the knowledge of the
present generation; but still I am sensible that my record is far too
diffuse. Feeling this at the very time of writing, I was yet unable to
correct it; so little self-control was I able to exercise under the afflicting
agitations and the unconquerable impatience of my nervous malady.
2. "War." [Footnote: Published in "Narrative and Miscellaneous

Essays."]--In this paper, from having faultily adjusted its proportions in
the original outline, I find that I have dwelt too briefly and too feebly
upon the capital interest at stake. To apply a correction to some popular
misreadings of history, to show that the criminal (because trivial)
occasions of war are not always its trifle causes, or to suggest that war
(if resigned to its own natural movement of progress) is cleansing itself
and ennobling itself constantly and inevitably, were it only through its
connection with science ever more and more exquisite, and through its
augmented costliness,--all this may have its use in offering some
restraint upon the levity of action or of declamation in Peace Societies.
But all this is below the occasion. I feel that far grander interests are at
stake in this contest. The Peace Societies are falsely appreciated, when
they are described as merely deaf to the lessons of experience, and as
too "_romantic_" in their expectations. The very opposite is, to my
thinking, their criminal reproach. He that is romantic errs usually by
too much elevation. He violates the standard of reasonable expectation,
by drawing too violently upon the nobilities of human nature. But, on
the contrary, the Peace Societies would, if their power kept pace with
their guilty purposes, work degradation for man by drawing upon his
most effeminate and luxurious cravings for ease. Most heartily, and
with my profoundest sympathy, do I go along with Wordsworth in his
grand lyrical proclamation of a truth not less divine than it is
mysterious, not less triumphant than it is sorrowful, namely, that
amongst God's holiest instruments for the elevation of human nature is
"mutual slaughter" amongst men; yes, that "Carnage is God's
daughter." Not deriving my own views in this matter from
Wordsworth,--not knowing even whether I hold them on the same
grounds, since Wordsworth has left his grounds
unexplained,--nevertheless I cite them in honor, as capable of the
holiest justification. The instruments rise in grandeur, carnage and
mutual slaughter rise in holiness, exactly as the motives and the
interests rise on behalf of which such awful powers are invoked.
Fighting for truth in its last recesses of sanctity, for human dignity
systematically outraged, or for human rights mercilessly trodden under