A WASP looks at Lizzie Borden

National Review, August 17, 1992 by Florence King

A Providence reporter and Civil War veteran: "Most women would faint at seeing her father dead, for I never saw a more horrible sight and I have walked over battlefields where thousands were dead and mangled. She is a woman of remarkable nerve and self-control."

Julian Ralph, New York Sun: "It was plain to see that she had complete mastery of herself, and could make her sensations and emotions invisible to an impertinent public."

To ward off a backlash, Lizzie gave an interview to the New York Recorder in which she managed to have her bona fides and eat them too: "They say I don't show any grief. Certainly I don't in public. I never did reveal my feelings and I cannot change my nature now."

I find this very refreshing in an age that equates self-control with elitism. If Lizzie were around today she would be reviled as the Phantom of the Oprah.

Wasp emotional repression also gave us the marvelous fight between Lizzie and Emma in Lizzie's jail cell while she was awaiting trial. Described by Mrs. Hannah Reagan, the police matron, it went like this: "Emma, you have given me away, haven't you?" "No, Lizzie, I have not."

"You have, and I will let you see I won't give in one inch."

Finis. Lizzie turned over on her cot and lay with her back to Emma, who remained in her chair. They stayed like that for two hours and twenty minutes, until visiting time was up and Emma left.

When Mrs. Reagan spilled this sensational colloquy to the press, Lizzie's lawyers said it was a lie and demanded she sign a retraction. Doubts arose, but Victoria Lincoln believes Mrs. Reagan: "That terse exchange followed by a two-hour-and-twenty-minute sulking silence sounds more like a typical Borden family fight than the sort of quarrel an Irish police matron would dream up from her own experience."

The Last Word

AFTER her acquittal, Lizzie bought a mansion for herself and Emma in Fall River's best neighborhood. Social acceptance was another matter. When she returned to Central Congregational, everyone was very polite, so she took the hint and stopped going.

She lived quietly until 1904, when she got pinched for shoplifting in Providence. This is what really made her an outcast. Murder is one thing, but...

In 1913, Emma suddenly moved out and never spoke to Lizzie again. Nobody knows what happened. Maybe Lizzie finally admitted to the murders, but I doubt it; the Protestant conscience is not programmed for pointless confession. It sounds more as if Emma found out that her sister had a sex life.

An enthusiastic theatergoer, Lizzie was a great fan of an actress named Nance O'Neill. They met in a hotel and developed an intense friendship; Lizzie threw lavish parties for Nance and her troupe and paid Nance's legal expenses in contractual disputes with theater owners. Nance was probably the intended recipient of the unmailed letter Lizzie wrote beginning "Dear Friend," and going on to juicier sentiments: "I dreamed of you the other night but I do not dare to put my dreams on paper." If Emma discovered the two were lesbian lovers, it's no wonder she moved out so precipitately. Murder is one thing, but...