death, fifthly, because Harriet narrowly watched a surgical operation
which was being performed upon her child, and, "to the astonishment of
the operator," who was watching Harriet instead of attending to his
operation, she betrayed "not the smallest sign of emotion." The author
of this biography was not ashamed to set down that exultant slander.
He was apparently not aware that it was a small business to bring into
his court a witness whose name he does not know, and whose character and
veracity there is none to vouch for, and allow him to strike this blow at
the mother-heart of this friendless girl. The biographer says, "We may
not infer from this that Harriet did not feel"--why put it in, then?--
"but we learn that those about her could believe her to be hard and
insensible." Who were those who were about her? Her husband? He hated
her now, because he was in love elsewhere. Her sister? Of course that
is not charged. Peacock? Peacock does not testify. The wet-nurse? She
does not testify. If any others were there we have no mention of them.
"Those about her" are reduced to one person--her husband. Who reports
the circumstance? It is Hogg. Perhaps he was there--we do not know.
But if he was, he still got his information at second-hand, as it was the
operator who noticed Harriet's lack of emotion, not himself. Hogg is not
given to saying kind things when Harriet is his subject. He may have
said them the time that he tried to tempt her to soil her honor, but
after that he mentions her usually with a sneer. "Among those who were
about her" was one witness well equipped to silence all tongues, abolish
all doubts, set our minds at rest; one witness, not called, and not
callable, whose evidence, if we could but get it, would outweigh the
oaths of whole battalions of hostile Hoggs and nameless surgeons--the
baby. I wish we had the baby's testimony; and yet if we had it it would
not do us any good--a furtive conjecture, a sly insinuation, a pious
"if" or two, would be smuggled in, here and there, with a solemn air of
judicial investigation, and its positiveness would wilt into dubiety.