Defense of the Faith and the Saints. B. H. Roberts

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ also a poor imbecile man, the victim of a horrible, and unnameable mutilation; and a woman who had gone insane because her husband married another wife. The wives, to his honor be it said, were such in name only. This collection of the woebegone, with the child Prudence added, make up the Rae household. The girl Prudence becomes beautiful, of course, and is much sought by men of middle life already possessed of many wives, no less a personage than Brigham Young being among the number; and it is represented that the latter "suitor" had but to send word in advance to the foster father of his intention to marry the girl on his next journey south, in order to close the matrimonial incident, except the formal word-ceremony, and taking away the bride! But Miss Prudence had visited Salt Lake, and while there witnessed the performance at the theater of "Romeo and Juliet," which is sufficient to give her ideas of love and matrimony all her own. The balcony scene much impressed her; and ever afterwards became her ideal of expressed love. A few years of dreaming on the part of the maiden, and a few years of silent suffering on the part of Joel Rae, now the "little man of sorrows," then the lad of the Meadows, Ruel Follett, who escaped from Hamblin's ranch swearing vengeance on Rae and two other participants in the massacre, returns, seeking his revenge. He is now a young man, handsome, brave, strong, aggressive. But he is baffled in his mission of retribution. Two of the murderers he seeks are already dead some time since, and Rae is so pitifully weak and distraught by the haunting memories of that awful butchery that young Follett cannot find the heart to kill him; besides there is Prudence, who loves the "little man of sorrows" with true filial affection. The upshot of it all is that young Follett leaves to time the duty of taking off Rae—an event that cannot be long deferred, since the little man is fast hastening to the end of his earthly career; and meantime Follett insidiously woos Prudence, and wins her love; while she makes an unsuccessful effort to convert him to Mormonism. In all their readings, and conversations upon the Book of Mormon and other subjects connected with the Mormon religion, Follett is given an easy victory over the poor girl by the employment of covert sneers, slightly concealed sarcasms and tender ridicule. Meantime Joel Rae has lost his faith in Mormonism; he discovers that polygamy is wrong; the Saints abandoned of God; and on the occasion of Brigham Young paying his annual visit to the settlement where Rae lives, he tells the prophet and the people his discoveries. Anticipating the vengeance of the "Sons of Dan," Rae flies to the cross and cairn of stones erected on the site of the Mountain Meadows massacre, that he may die—according to orthodox dramatic canons—at the place where his awful crime was committed. He is followed by Prudence and young Follett, who come up to him at the cross erected by Gentile hands on the site of the massacre, where, in company with two Indians, they watched him peacefully pass away in a rather protracted death scene, to the accompaniment of an Indian tom-tom drum, and notwithstanding one of the redmen waves before his eyes the yellow scalp-lock which years before he had seen reeking with blood snatched from the head of the woman he loved. Young Follett and Prudence, as soon as the "little man of sorrows" is buried, leave for the east with a passing wagon train, and having been married by Rae a few minutes before his death, the reader is left to infer that they "lived happily ever after," in some eastern city, far, far away from fanatical Mormons, and their wickedness, where only monogamous marriages obtain, and conjugal happiness is never disturbed by the haunting fears of marital infidelities, or polygamy, simultaneous or consecutive.

      I have been at the pains to give this rather full synopsis of the story, that my readers may be witnesses of the fact that Mr. Wilson has certainly massed enough of gruesome materials to furnish to repletion several chambers of horrors. Far be it from me to suggest that so prominent an author has stooped to the methods of yellow-backed, ten-cent novelists of a quarter of a century ago, in the matter at least of the quality and mass of incidents to be woven into story. This glance at the incidents of the story also reveals the opportunity they will afford the author for gathering into one view the bigotry, ignorance, weakness, fanaticism, and wickedness of individual Mormons, all to be interwoven with the mockery, sarcasm, ridicule, ribaldry, innuendo and insults of their enemies.

      And now, as to the treatment of the theme. The author of the "Lions of the Lord" in his opening chapter—the prettiest piece of descriptive writing in the book—has drawn heavily upon, if he has not actually plagiarized from, the lecture of the late General Thomas L. Kane, of Philadelphia, delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, on March 26, 1850. Mr. Wilson heads his first chapter "The Dead City," meaning Nauvoo after the departure of the last of the Mormons. Mr. Kane opens his Lecture under the caption "The Deserted City," meaning Nauvoo after the departure of the last of the Mormons. Mr. Wilson makes his hero, Joel Rae, enter the "dead city" in "September." Mr. Kane enters "the deserted city" late in the "autumn." Mr. Wilson's hero "from a skiff in mid-river" views the temple on the hill top; presently "landing at the wharf, he was stunned by the hush of the streets." Mr. Kane "procured a skiff," and rowing across the river, "landed at the chief wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked and saw no one. I could hear no one move, though the quiet everywhere was such that I could hear the flies buzz."

      The closeness with which Mr. Wilson follows Mr. Kane's beautifully descriptive passages, however, will best be seen and appreciated when placed in parallel paragraphs, as follows:

Mr. Wilson. "The Dead City."	Mr. Kane. "The Deserted City."
"The city without life lay handsomely along a river in the early sunlight of a September morning. … .From the half-circle around which the broad river bent its moody current, the neat houses, set in cool green gardens, were terraced up the high hill, and from the summit of this a stately marble temple, glittering of newness, towered far above them in placid benediction."	"Half encircled by the bend of the river, a beautiful city lay glittering in the fresh [autumn] morning sun; its bright new dwellings, set in cool green gardens, ranging up around a stately dome shaped hill which was crowned by a noble marble edifice, whose high tapering spire was radiant with white and gold."
"Mile after mile the streets lay silent, along the river front, up to the hilltop, and beyond into the level. … And when they had run their length, and the outlying fields were reached, there, too, the same brooding spell-and the land stretched away in the hush and haze."	"The city appeared to cover several miles; and beyond it, in the background, there rolled off a fair country, checquered by the careful lines of fruitful husbandry."
"The yellow grain, heavy-headed with richness, lay beaten down and rotting, for there were no reapers. The city, it seemed, had died calmly, painlessly, drowsily, as if overcome by sleep."	"Fields upon fields of heavy headed yellow grain lay rotting ungathered upon the ground. No one was at hand to take in their rich harvest. As far as the eye could reach, they stretched away, they sleeping, too, in the hazy air of autumn."
"He started wonderingly up a street that led from the i waterside. … He was now passing empty workshops, hesitating door after door with ever mounting alarm. … . Growing bolder, he tried some of the doors and found them to yield. … . He passed an empty rode walk, the hemp strewn about, as if the workers had left hurriedly. He peered curiously at idle looms and deserted spinning wheels—deserted apparently but the instant before he came … He entered a carpenter's shop. On the bench was an unfinished door, a plane where it had been shoved half the length of its edge, the fresh pine shaving still curling over the side. … . He turned into a baker's shop and saw freshly chopped kindling piled against the oven, and dough actually on the kneading tray. In a tanner's vat he found fresh bark. In a blacksmith's shod he entered next the fire was out, but there was coal headed beside the forge, with the ladling pool and the crooked water horn, and on the anvil was a horseshoe that had cooled before it was finished."	"I walked through the solitary streets. … I went about unchecked. I went into empty workshops, ropewalks and smithies. The spinner's wheel was idle; the carpenter had gone from his work bench and shavings, his unfinished sash and casing. Fresh bark was in the tanner's vat, and the fresh chopped lightwood stood piled against the baker's oven. The blacksmith shop was cold, but his coal heap, and lading pool, and crooked water horn were all there as if he had just gone off for a holiday."
"He entered one of the gardens, clinking the gate-latch loudly after him, but no one challenged. He drew СКАЧАТЬ В начало < 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 > В конец