The Trial for Murder by Charles Dickens

" A truthful traveller, who should have seen some extraordinary
creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning
it; but the same traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse,
vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental
impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it."

Charles Dickens may be known world wide for A Christmas Carol, but his short ghost stories are just as horrifying as his popular tale of societal greed. Rae Wilson shares her observations on Dicken's work and and invites you question your own reluctance related to what fantastical events you are willing to share.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Echoes in the Dark, a podcast dedicated to the oral tradition of storytelling. If you're looking to enjoy more classic literature, struggle to find the time to read, hate reading, or just love listening to stories, then this podcast is for you. At the end of each story, I'll share my analysis on the story's deeper meanings. The Trial for Murder by Charles Dickens is a short story that was originally published in 1865 in the literary magazine All the Year Round. Dickens was a prolific writer and wrote hundreds of short stories as well as 15 books, with a Christmas Carol being one of his most notable works. The entire story is told in first-person narration. If you want to follow along, you can get a copy on my website, betteressaywriting.com. The Trial for Murder by Charles Dickens. I have always noticed the prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveler, who should have some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it. But the same traveler, having had some singular presentment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision, so-called, dream, or other remarkable mental oppression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence, I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. In what I'm going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, opposing or supporting any theory whatever. I know the history of the bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a late astronomer royal, as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of spectral illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state as to this last that the sufferer, a lady, was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case, but only a part which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. It does not signify how many years ago or how few a certain murder was committed in England which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of murders as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute if I could, as his body was buried in Newgate jail. I purposely abstained from giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell, or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. And I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash, rush, flow, I do not know what to call it. No word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river, though almost instantaneous in its passing. It was perfectly clear, so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed. It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in the chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James's Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy chair at the moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position. But it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on Caster's. I went to one of the windows. There are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor. I have to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright autumn morning and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high, and as I looked out, it was brought down from the park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way going west to east. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him at a distance of some thirty paces with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention, and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement. And no single creature that I could see gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognize them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed was of the color of impure wax. I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain branch bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life and being slightly deceptic. I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description. And I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it. As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unraveling, took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of the willful murder had been found against the suspected murderer and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one session of the Central Criminal Court on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defense. I may further have known, but I believe I did not. When or about when the sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on. My sitting room, bedroom, and dressing room are all on one floor. With the last there is no communication but through the bedroom. True there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase, but a part of the fitting of my bath has been and has then been for some years, fixed across it. At the same period and as a part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvassed over. I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing room and it was closed. My servant's back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him, I saw it open and a man looked in who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of the color of impure wax.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

The figure, having beckoned, drew back and closed the door.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressing room door and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing room, and I did not see it there. Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him and said Derrick, could you believe that in my cool sentence I fancied I saw a as I there laid my hand upon his breast with a sudden start, he trembled violently and said, Oh Lord, yes, sir, a dead man beckoning. Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty, attached servant for more than twenty years had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure until I touched him. The change in him was so startling. When I touched him that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant. I bade John Derrick bring some brandy and I gave him a dram and was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night's phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before except on the one occasion in Piccadilly, comparing its expression when beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window. I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered. I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight I fell into a heavy sleep from which I was awakened by John Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand. This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me to serve upon a jury at the forthcoming sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a jury as John Derrick well knew. He believed, I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise, that class of jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said that my attendance or non attendance was nothing to him. There the summons was, and I should deal with it at my own peril and not at his. For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call or to take notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction one way or the other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go. The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the last degree, oppressive east of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the courthouse flaringly lighted with gas, and the court itself similarly illuminated. I think that until I was conducted by officers into the old court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the murderer was to be tried that day. I think that until I was so helped into the old court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two courts sending my summons would take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point. I took my seat in the place appropriated to jurors in waiting, and I looked about the court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapor hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the street. Also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle or a louder song or hail than the rest occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the judges, two in number, entered and took their seats. The buzz and the court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the murderer to the bar. He appeared there, and in that same instant I recognized in him the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered it audibly, but it was called about the sixth or eighth of the panel, and I was by that time able to say here, now observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman that the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were at all hazards challenge that man. But that, as he would give no reason for it and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called, and I appeared. It was not done. Both on the ground already explained that I wished to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that murderer, and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the jury, were kept together as directly bare on my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not in the murderer, that I seek to interest my reader. It is to that and not to a page of the Newgate calendar that I beg attention. I was chosen foreman of the jury. On the second morning of the trial after evidence had been taken for two hours, I heard the church clock strike. Happening to cast my eyes over my brother juryman, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many. I touched the brother Dryman whose place was next me, and I whispered to him oblige me by counting us. He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. Why? says he suddenly. But no, it's not possible. No, we are twelve. According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance, no figure to account for it, but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. The jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safekeeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and I was glad to hear, much respected in the city. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine, sorenous voice. His name was Mr Harker. When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr Harker's bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down and seeing Mr Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mrs Harker's hand touched mine and taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him and he said Who is this? Following Mr Harker's eyes and looking along the room, I saw again the figure expected the second of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose and advanced a few steps then stopped and looked round at Mr Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed and said in a pleasant way, I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman without a bed, but I see it is the moonlight. Making no revelation to mister Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the right hand side of the bed and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me or of my bed, which was the nearest to mister Harker's. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs. Next morning at breakfast it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and mister Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man, so to speak, as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place and a manner for which I was not not at all prepared. On the fifth day of the trial, when the case of the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding place where the murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the bench and thence handed down to be inspected by the jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man, who had gone down Piccadilly, impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands at the same time saying in a low and hollow tone, before I saw the miniature which was in a locket I was younger then, and my face was not then drained of blood. It also came between me and the brother jurryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it and so passed it on through the whole of our number and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this at table and generally when we were shut up together in Mr Hawker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On the fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious. Among our number was the vestry man, the densest idiot I have ever seen at large, who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites, all the three impaneled with a district so delivered over to fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial for five hundred murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them and striking into the conversation he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances confined to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my brother journeymen laid their hands together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature on the fifth day of the trial I had never seen the appearance in court. Three changes occurred now that we entered on the case for the defense. Two of them I will mention together first the figure was now in court continuing and it never there addressed itself to me but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance, the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across in the opening speech for the defense it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat at that very moment the figure with its throat in the dreadful condition referred to this it had concealed before stood at the speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self inflicted by either hand. For another instance, a witness to character, a woman deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance and an extended arm and an outstretched finger. The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorize upon it, I accurately stated and there leave it. Although the appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. Seemed to me as if it were prevented by laws to which I was not amiable, from fully revealing itself to others and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly and darkly overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defense suggested that hypothesis of suicide and the figure stood at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness character was confronted by the appearance her eyes most certainly did follow direction of its pointed finger and rest in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will suffice on the eighth day of the trial after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes rest and refreshment, I came back into court with the rest of the jury some little time before the return of the judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought the figure was not there until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman as if to assure itself whether the judges had resumed their seats or not.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, fainted and was carried out so with the vernable, sagacious and patient judge who conducted the trial when the case was over and he settled himself in his papers to sum up, the murdered man, entering by the judge's door, advanced to his lordship's desk and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which was turning a change came over his lordship's face his hand stopped the peculiar shiver that I knew so well passed over him.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

He faltered excuse me, gentlemen for a few moments I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air and did not quite recover until he had drunk a glass of water. Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days, the same judges and others on the bench same murderer in the dock the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the court the same scratching of the judge's pen, the same ushers going in and out the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoners day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been foreman of the jury for a vast period of time and Piccadilly had flourished covely with Babylon. The murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not omit as a matter of fact that I never once saw the appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man look at the murderer.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Again and again I wondered why does he not?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

But he never did nor did he look at me after the production of the miniature until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived we retired to consider at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestry man and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble that we twice returned into court to beg to have certain extracts from the judge's notes reread. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had anyone in the court Theunderheaded triumvirate having no idea but obstruction disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed and finally the jury returned into court at ten minutes past twelve. The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the jury box. On the other side of the court as I took my place his eyes rested on me with great attention he seemed satisfied and slowly shook a great grey veil which he carried on his arm for the first time over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict guilty the veil collapsed all was gone and his place was empty The murderer being asked by the judge according to usage whether he had anything to say before sentence of death should be passed upon him and distinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as a few rambling, incoherent and half audible words in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the foreman of the jury was prepossessed against him. The remarkable declaration that he really made was this My lord I knew I was a doomed man when the foreman of the jury came into the box. My lord I knew he would never let me off because before I was taken he somehow got to my bedside at night woke me and put a rope round my neck so that was a trial for murder by Charles Dickens and it looks like this story originally had a different title. That title was To Be Taken with a grain of salt um this was originally published as a chapter in Dr. Marigold's prescriptions a according to Wikipedia a December 1865 extra Christmas volume of the weekly literary magazine all the year round so um I find the original title to be very very interesting this idea to be taken with a grain of salt like yeah I'm gonna tell you something but you can believe it or not um now under the new title The Trial for Murder this has more weight to it in terms of um the story in its of itself is this recount of this guy's experience on jury duty and we kinda have to wonder what's on trial here. Not really who we're never told anything about the guy who um died or the man who killed him but I do feel that the justice system and society in itself might be on trial in Dickens's uh story so if you are familiar with the Christmas story then you are probably used to um the very uh playful usage of words and really grim way that Dickens portrays uh English society which you know there are a lot of things that weren't fair or nice so he has he has the right to share his opinion in his writings um I guess I'm just laughing because it's kind of like it's very clear that you don't love uh a lot of things about English society but with all that being said um the justice system now I'm gonna just kind of mention this little Wikipedia thing that I saw and then I'm gonna move away from it because I generally give my impressions without doing uh major research on other people's take or impressions. Um why do I do this? Because I want to tell you what stands out to me as someone who studies stories and I want you to see if this sparks something in you is it something that you've already considered I mean I'm not gonna come on here just tell you what everyone else has already said because you can just look that up for yourself. So this uh this analysis is a way for you to to think for yourself to agree with me to disagree with me to hopefully call out some things that you may have noticed or may not have noticed all right so da da da da da ooh questionable authorship what is this Wikipedia although it is typically credited owing to Dickens it is occasionally thought to be a collaborative work. Okay well no one cares no one cares Wikipedia um okay so let's see Wikipedia says Dickinson's criticism of the Victorian justice system the murderer could only be rightfully charged when the ghost of the murder victim influences the trial presenting an argument that the justice system can only be just under supernatural circumstances. I don't know about that I don't really agree with that Wikipedia um that's no one cares. However the patrol narrator's ability to see past the idiocy of the jurors and the corruption of the witnesses to continue fighting for the right sentence may also convey that each individual has the power to rise up against the corruption rife in the Victorian justice system. I don't really know about that either I don't I don't know I kind of feel like that is a a stretch there as well but um yeah actually I feel like that's all a bit of a stretch it's not really taking into account the rest of the story. I mean we've got the lawyer who is defending his client and then suddenly finds himself uh getting the chills and being stricken we've got the uh the judge who is about to read the um read the verdict well I guess the jury yeah yeah the jury wants to give him their verdict but the judge when he returns to the proceedings and is ready to get things started he also has a moment of whoa something's going on here right so we don't have any I'm finding myself debating Wikipedia we don't have anything for me at least in the writing it's not said that the person who takes a stand on behalf of the murderer is lying it's said that this person believes him to be a good person. Now that could just be this person's knowledge right this happens all the time where someone's saying hey I've always known that person to be nice and kind and I never saw them do anything wrong especially when you think about parents like that's not the child I raise I I mean he was always a good boy growing up you know maybe a little mischief every now and then but nothing nothing major you know that's not who I raised um so I don't know Wikipedia this is why I don't bother looking up things but this is one thing that I did want to share with you dear listener. Okay um potential inspiration under the Wikipedia listing after reading Elizabeth Gaskell's hello because I'm loving some Elizabeth Gaskell so after reading Elizabeth Gaskell's The Old Nurses Story we have not read that together my friends but it is on the list oh my gosh I just realized don't be a spoiler okay after reading Elizabeth Gaskell's The Old Nurses Story Dickens was critical of its ending where everyone in the story could see the ghost he felt that it was too similar to others' famous works such as William Shakespeare's representation of ghosts and would be uninteresting to readers well William Shakespeare didn't have everyone in the play being able to see ghosts um Hamlet was seeing stuff but it's not really said that the soldiers were seeing things so yeah go away Wikipedia no one has time for that okay so let's get to the things that stood out to me well I love Dickens' description of the uh the jurors who were as he felt could have been or should have been on trial for the 500 crimes they themselves had committed so these kind of thick-headed guys who just didn't seem to want to convict um or want to believe the information being presented now to be fair okay um on every trial it is it's not uncommon I say on every trial but let me change that it is not uncommon for there to be a trial where there's one or two jurors who just uh they just don't believe it they just don't buy it with no matter what it is like uh I don't buy it why would that happen this is silly right um and does he say that these are blue collar guys let's see um dunderheaded I thought that was dunderheaded triumvirate I thought that was really fancy fancy wording to show the complete opposite in education and standing than the people he's describing right um so these guys what do they know come on they know nothing um yeah I just I don't know I just thought that was pretty funny humorous to me and um the the idea that he winds up talking with these guys and getting into the conversation hopefully possibly trying to change some minds I mean I ultimately he's successful because everyone goes to guilty but originally he's just like oh my gosh these guys are just stupid they're just come on what's going on here I thought that was kind of fun kind of interesting um so what is the reason for that well I think it's a statement on often even if something seems as clear as day to everyone else there's always someone who's just like nah not buying it don't get it don't care and maybe these guys really aren't um opposed to the idea that the murderer is indeed a murderer but they are not um they're not convinced so far with the legal process and that I kind of comes to the question of well there's a lot of reasons why they could not be convinced you know if these guys really have had a record of committing their own crimes maybe they just don't like the prosecution and they don't want for the prosecution to win regardless Regardless of whether or not this guy is seemingly guilty. I mean, that's very much something to be taken into account. A lot of times, people will look at a um a lawyer and go, you know, I just don't like that guy, right? Uh, which is why it's so important for the defense to have strong counsel. All right. So yeah, um, we have this idea that your jurors um are not, they're supposed to be your peers, right? Juror of your peers. And so your jurors, if you roll around the mud, your jurors might also be people who roll around the mud. And that's not, is that fair? Is that fair to the guy who was killed? We don't really know anything about the guy who was killed. Why he was killed, was he a good person? Maybe he also rolled around the mud and was a bit of a creep and a crook, but he just got the wrong end of a blade. We don't know. We have no idea. All right. Um, the other thing that really stands out to me is this idea that only our narrator can see these two guys walking down the street during the daytime, um, and they both fixate on the narrator, kind of imprinting. Um so why was he chosen? He is the chosen one. We don't have any idea. But there are times in life when we can feel that we are the only ones who can see the truth. We're the only ones who get it. Like, why doesn't everyone else see this? Why is everyone else following along with this uh trend? Or why is everyone else completely okay with whatever corruption is going on around us based on that little Wikipedia bit that I shared with you? Maybe Dickens felt why was he the only one who could see the problems with um society at the time or with the court system? Maybe, yeah. But the idea of why is it that only I get it? And then running around and trying to convince other people or hearing other people out and wondering, gosh, is there something I can do that will sway them? Um and just watching other people slowly come to the realization on their own that maybe their belief is not fully supported. Maybe they should reconsider. Maybe that witness should reconsider um her belief that the defendant is a good person. Uh that is something very relatable to. Originally, I was looking at this story as this was this was alright. You know, it got the creepy ghosts going around. Um again, we have a narrator telling us of something that happened. But, you know, it's all right. It's all right. Uh, not a whole lot here in terms of things to really learn from, but I am actually going to correct myself in the sense that I do think Dickens, who in my opinion is really good at playing with words, um, I found myself reading this and uh just fascinated, not with word just with word choice, but the combination of various phrases. I thought this is this is great. Um, not easy to read, but this is great. But um, so not just great with the English language, but also he did a really good job of picking a few key points that he really wanted to drive home and just focusing on those points. Um, and I think the the real big point of this story is that you can feel you are the only one who gets it, the only one who sees it. It's so obvious to you, clear as day, and yet you're watching everyone else slowly come to that realization, wondering if the rest of the world will come to the same realization that you have about something. Um, and you're not even sure why you see it that way. Why do you get it? Like, why is it that you could see it and not anyone else? It is not a matter of this man's education or standing and um or training or anything of that nature. He just gets it. The idea of touching his um attendant or servant and the guy be just kind of waking up and being able to see what was so clear as day to him. And you know, he's able to handle it. The the servant was like, What? He's like, yo, let's well, he didn't say yo, but in terms of, hey, you know what? I need a drink. You should have a drink too, we'll be fine. So, not just being able to see what others can't see, and being it's also the ability to understand it to handle it. Um, even if you feel like you have to wait an eternity for the rest of the world to catch on. The other thing that I think is a really major point in this story is, and this is from the beginning of the story, it's where Dickens uh points out, and I'm gonna quote Um almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life. Okay, so almost everybody feels that what they can tell somebody else, they want it to be relatable. They they they want the other person who's listening to be like, oh yeah, I get that, I saw that. And they don't want to be, and I quote, and might be suspected or laughed at. So no one wants to tell something and pour their heart out, and then find everyone else is like, what are you talking about? Ha ha ha ha, you're stupid, or uh no, that's not it. So yeah, that is something that really keeps people from wanting to share things. Um, a truthful traveler who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea serpent, right? Someone who is known to be honest and they see something that is pretty unbelievable, they'll happily mention that, quote, would have no fear of mentioning it. But the same traveler, having had some singular presentment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision, so-called dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. So, yeah, you think you saw Bigfoot running through the forest? You're telling somebody, I think I just saw Bigfoot. You have anything related to your mental state. So, not anything related to something that you didn't necessarily see with your own eyes. Um, something like uh you had a dream that Bigfoot was running through the forest, or you had a dream or a feeling that there might be an earthquake. I just had this feeling that something bad's gonna happen today. You ain't telling nobody. You're not telling anybody I had a dream that that there was gonna be a major earthquake today. People be like, what are you talking about? No one's gonna believe you. Even if you do tell them. Like, what are you talking about? That's weird. Don't dream that. If you say, yo, I could have sworn I saw that guy that they were talking about on TV. I don't know why, but I could have sworn I saw that guy they're talking about who's dressed as a killer clown. People are like, oh my gosh, maybe you did. So I found that statement to be really fascinating and full of truth, even today, over a century after this story has been written. That's all I got for you. I hope you found this story interesting. I surely found it interesting. Um, it was fun to dive into some dickens that was not about the Christmas Carol. So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this story and do come back for another Gothic Tish.