Page:The American review - a Whig journal of politics, literature, art, and science (1845).djvu/135

1845.] JACK LONG;

OR, LYNCH-LAW AND VENGEANCE.

the following relation of real occurrences there are several incidental matters it would be well to have understood. So much of exag^gerated romance is to be observed pervading the narrative spirit of the times, that, with a due respect for the good nature of our readers, it has become indispensable that the story-teller should be very sure of his ground—that is, sufficiently so, to feel that he can establish a sympathetic confidence between his readers and himself, that he is not attempting to impose upon their credulity by sheer and egregious fabrications of his own, when he undertakes to tell what is called a "hard story." To define in words what the process of establishing this sympathy consists in, is a difficult matter. The most that can be said of it is, that it forms itself. Mere assertions will not always answer. Where it is required that they alone should be taken, they must be accompanied by a nameless and inexpressible air, not of candor only, but of minute and piquant detail, such as personal familiarity with the incidents narrated can only give. It is easy enough to romance upon the ground work of a general knowledge of characteristics, but to the cool search of an accurate eye, there is a want of filling in, an absence of those finer touches which are better felt than described. A very unsatisfactory impression of doubt is the consequence, and the writer who establishes himself on so unfortunate terms with the reader, must altogether fail of producing the effect he aims at. Neither the careless use of round assertions, nor reiterations of one's own special claims to immaculacy in truth-telling will bring about that pleasant state of trustfulness so desirable in the mind of the hearer. There is another extreme—that of too much pretension to a bluff, straight-forward "I am not eloquent as Brutus is!" kind of manner! But the world is getting too old for this game. There is yet a medium which strikes me as the only true one. Make no protestations at all, one way or the other. If there is a story to to tell, tell it. Be carefully minute, and ask no favors:—the hard eyed public will rate what is said properly. A sensitive irritability at the idea of distrust is not a whit more persuasive than a narrative bullyism;—men like neither to be whined or bluffed out of their judgments.

Before proceeding, it would not be amiss to give a more definite idea, than has generally obtained, of the social condition of the peculiar region in which these strange scenes were enacted. Every body knows that Texas has been the peculiar and favorite resort of restless, adventurous men, and not those of this stamp simply, but as well the vicious and unprincipled, of nearly all nations. A knowledge of this fact alone would naturally lead one to expect, that the commingling of so many passionate and opposite extremes would lead to many extravagances in the action of their antagonism—that excesses of all kinds, the unhesitating expression of unbridled impulses, would be ordinary" incidents of life here—that the quick wrath and bloody hand should be often simultaneous, where the most formidable weapons were openly worn, law and its restraints little regarded, and general sentiment favored a resort to them on trivial occasions. Though this much of a vague knowledge of the state of things there, might prepare the anticipation for a good deal—even though a visit to the principal cities of the country should still farther prepare it for a realization of what may properly come within the scope of such forces, still it would be difficult to understand how the monstrous exhibitions of frontier life, with which those who have lived amidst it are familiar, can possibly be credible. One must see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, before he can readily conceive that many things occurring; there could be looked upon as matters of course. Yet outrages the most terrible succeed each other rapidly;—men are lynched and stabbed and shot with as little compunction as you would feel in spitting a goose I The law of bloody force is alone recognized; there is no medium between the insult and the desperate retahation. There is no interposition, of either general sentiment or civil organization, between the savagery of unreclaimed blood wreaking