Howard, and intended to marry her. Yet, during my temporary absence

at Benicia, last week, alas! she married Jones. Is my happiness to

be thus blasted for life? Have I no redress?"

Of course you have. All the law, written and unwritten, is on your side.

The intention and not the act constitutes crime--in other words,

constitutes the deed. If you call your bosom friend a fool, and intend

it for an insult, it is an insult; but if you do it playfully, and

meaning no insult, it is not an insult. If you discharge a pistol

accidentally, and kill a man, you can go free, for you have done no

murder; but if you try to kill a man, and manifestly intend to kill him,

but fail utterly to do it, the law still holds that the intention

constituted the crime, and you are guilty of murder. Ergo, if you had

married Edwitha accidentally, and without really intending to do it, you

would not actually be married to her at all, because the act of marriage

could not be complete without the intention. And ergo, in the strict

spirit of the law, since you deliberately intended to marry Edwitha, and

didn't do it, you are married to her all the same--because, as I said

before, the intention constitutes the crime. It is as clear as day that

Edwitha is your wife, and your redress lies in taking a club and

mutilating Jones with it as much as you can. Any man has a right to

protect his own wife from the advances of other men. But you have

another alternative--you were married to Edwitha first, because of your

deliberate intention, and now you can prosecute her for bigamy, in

subsequently marrying Jones. But there is another phase in this

complicated case: You intended to marry Edwitha, and consequently,

Sketches New and Old