Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/246



"In 1903 he intended to marry her. Writing to Longfellow, he says:

"'Miss N. and I may be married after Lady Yarmouth comes. We could have been married without a row. If I die, all my property goes to my wife.' And, writing to her, he says: 'Mr. and Mrs. George Carnegie should be your loving brother and sister-in-law.' Gentlemen, no man of his years, of his temperment, ever wooed a woman in a manner more respectable than Harry Thaw did Evelyn Nesbit.

"There is nothing to show that everything and every bit of testimony does not confirm the statement of Evelyn that in June, 1903, he proposed honorably to make her his wife.

"In corroboration of these facts told by Evelyn Nesbit, that she told this story of Stanford White, that he, Thaw, asked her to marry him, that it is not a cunningly devised tale told by Harry Thaw for his own purposes. I ask you these questions: Does a man who loves a woman, who has lavished upon her for two years all the affections of his heart, does a man who loves a woman honorably and sought to make her his wife and besought her mother's consent—does a man like that deliberately invent a story of this kind to defile the object of his adoration?

"Until you can take from this case the fact that Harry Thaw loved Evelyn Nesbit, if any man says to you that he deliberately invented this story to degrade the object of his affections—the most degrading story any man could tell—it is not in the human heart but to revolt from the allegation.

"If I mistake not, I have established to your satisfaction the great, simple fact—that this story about Stanford White is not an invention and that the statement that Evelyn Nesbit did tell the story to Thaw is true.

"As against this assertion, what evidence is there in this case? What is there to contradict this statement of Evelyn Nesbit, the statement that she told this story to Thaw?