on which he himself might have been delicate about making to
them. He would have been unwilling to dwell upon the--hem--peculiar
_status_ of his opponent; but she herself had seen fit to take it for
granted that he intended to advance a certain class of arguments, and he
consequently considered it only fair to her to do so. He should not,
however, call them arguments: they were rather considerations which
would serve to explain the arguments which Mrs. Tarbell herself had
used. "My learned opponent," said Mr. Pope, "told you that you mustn't
think of her client as a woman who comes here and asks for your
sympathy; you mustn't, she says, suppose that there is any feminine
weakness or resentment about Mrs. Stiles, nor, for a stronger
reason,--such is the unexpressed conclusion,--is there any feminine
weakness about Mrs. Stiles's eloquent counsel. Well, gentlemen, if Mrs.
Stiles is not a woman, what is she? Is she a white elephant? Is she a
female suffragist? which, I have heard, is neither man nor woman."
(Immense laughter in court, indignation in the cheeks of Mrs. Tarbell, a
lofty and contemptuous frown on the forehead of Mrs. Pegley.)
"Gentlemen, with the greatest possible respect for Mrs. Stiles, whose
painful sufferings I greatly deplore, and to whom I wish to tender my
entire sympathies; with, too, the greatest respect for my friend Mrs.
Tarbell, in admiration for whose talents and determination I yield to
nobody, I feel it my duty to say to you that this accident having
happened through the negligence, excusable perhaps, but still the
negligence,--carelessness, haste, if you will,--of Mrs. Stiles,--and
that this was the case I shall show you in a moment,--Mrs. Stiles and
her counsel, neither of them being for a single instant anything but a
woman, took the--what shall I say?--the romantic view of the matter
immediately. Romance, gentlemen, breathes its tender and refining
influence about the domestic fireside, chastens and sanctifies the
atmosphere of home, leads us, we all know, gentlemen, to holier and
purer views of life, and nerves us for the bitter struggle of the world.
But romance outside of the home-circle cuts but a sorry figure; it is
very dangerous for it to stray out of doors into the rough arena of
life,--into the street, gentlemen,--where there are street-cars. We must
look at the evils of life from the strictly legal point of view when
they come into court, gentlemen; and when his honor shall have laid