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the most universally appreciated. In both, it is of the lowest order of
merit.
"What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and melodrame
of the idea, that Marie Rogêt still lives, rather than any true
plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to L'Etoile, and
secured it a favorable reception with the public. Let us examine the
heads of this journal's argument; endeavoring to avoid the incoherence
with which it is originally set forth.
"The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the
interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the floating
corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The reduction of this
interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an
object with the reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes
into mere assumption at the outset. 'It is folly to suppose,' he says,
'that the murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have been
consummated soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body
into the river before midnight.' We demand at once, and very naturally,
why? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was committed within
five minutes after the girl's quitting her mother's house? Why is it
folly to suppose that the murder was committed at any given period
of the day? There have been assassinations at all hours. But, had the
murder taken place at any moment between nine o'clock in the morning of
Sunday, and a quarter before midnight, there would still have been
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