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TRIM. OF JOHN W. W]~IBSTER. 233
public interest. Returning home, he waited for his daughters, who
did not come in until after midnight; and the family soon after retired
to rest for the night. During all this period, at home and abroad, not
a circumstance occurred in all his actions or conversations which
attracted attention, or indicated to any observer the slightest peculiarity
of appearance. No emotion betrayed, no excitement or depression
denoted the occurrence of any unusual or remarkable transaction. He
was neither absent-minded, nor full of fits and starts, nor frightened
at the sound himself had made, but calm and self-possessed, constantly
social and at ease, alike when surrounded by his friends or by his
family. Is it possible to suppose that this ease and serenity could so
immediately have displaced the mental agitation and horror which cannot
but attend the perpetration of a desperate crime? Were ever human
nerves known to sustain such a steady tranquility upon such a violent
transition as that? I pray- you, answer me. All experience forbids its
belief. When life is but jostled by some trifling interruption of our daily
walk, there is left a trace behind, which will be marked by those who
know us. Some disappointment occurs in our affairs,-the treachery, it
may be , of a friend's distresses, or the outbreak of some calamity
which affects our interests, disturbs our minds. We return to the
soothing influences of home; but we cannot so suppress the mani-
festation of our inward feelings that watchful eyes will not
observe them. They who are familiar with our daily thoughts
and daily life need but a glance to detect an emotion which
disturbs our usual serenity; it cannot be hid from the penetrating
affection of the wife who cherishes her husband, nor from the loving
and devoted children who are quick to note the first variation in a parent's
smile,-a parent's cheerfulness. Can it be,-neither it is a question
for your experience and your hearts,)-that Dr. Webster could have been
so unmoved unaffected, undisturbed in the presence of his wife, his
children, and his friends, if he had, immediately before he met them,
committed the daring, atrocious, unspeakably great crime which is
charged against him? To have done so, he must have been more or less
than man. But if, like you and me, he was a man moved by the ordinary
influences which affect our common nature, I ask you if the accusation
can be true? I pray you, remember these great presumptions in his
favor when other circumstances are pressed into the scale against him.
Every succeeding day afforded to all who saw him new revelations
of a similar character, equally incompatible with the supposition of his
guilt., Saturday was spent partly at home, and partly at the College in
Boston; but no one pretends to have discovered anything in his con-
duct or demeanor which was unusual or peculiar. It was in the even-
ing that he first obtained information respecting the disappearance of
Dr. Parkman; he learned it from the public notice which his friends
had caused to be given in an advertisement published in the evening
papers. That notice announced that Dr. Parkman had left his house
to keep an appointment at half-after one o'clock on Friday, with some
gentleman who was unknown to his family. Dr. Webster saw at once
that he was the person to whom allusion was made; and he saw also,
what is a most material consideration, that no one knew of the appoint-
ment or interview between Dr. Parkman and himself. If he had com-
mitted the crime, here was satisfactory assurance that, up to this hour,
his secret was in his own keeping; and he had every reason to believe,
that, if the friends and the community were ignorant altogether of the
person with whom the appointment was made, he had only to persevere
in silence and it would rest for ever in universal darkness.
But, though he was thus assured that no knowledge of his being the
person who had made the appointment was possessed by any other than'
himself, he knew also that that appointment had no connection with the
disappearance of Dr. Parkman, and therefore he had no secret which he
could desire to keep. He would have gone early into Boston on Sun-
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