whom I had treasured up my love, polluted; and slander, like a desert
wind, pouring its desolating breath into my very heart. In my blindness
I would have forgiven her, taken her back to my distracted bosom, and
fled with her to some distant land, there still to have lived and loved
her. But she sought rather to conceal her guilt than ask forgiveness.
My reason fled me, my passion rose above my judgment, I sank under the
burden of my sorrow, attempted to put an end to her life, and to my own
misery. Failing in this, for my hand was stayed by a voice I heard
calling to me, I fled the country and sought relief for my feelings in
the wilds of Chili. I left nearly all to my wife, took but little with
me, for my object was to bury myself from the world that had known me,
and respected me. Destitution followed me; whither I went there seemed
no rest, no peace of mind for me. The past floated uppermost in my
mind. I was ever recurring to home, to those with whom I had
associated, to an hundred things that had endeared me to my own
country. Years passed-years of suffering and sorrow, and I found myself
a lone wanderer, without friend or money. During this time it was
reported at home, as well as chronicled in the newspapers, that I was
dead. The inventor of this report had ends, I will not name them here,
to serve. I was indeed dead to all who had known me happy in this
world. Disguised, a mere shadow of what I was once, I wandered back to
New York, heart-sick and discouraged, and buried myself among those
whose destitution, worse, perhaps, than my own, afforded me a means of
consolation. My life has long been a burden to me; I have many times
prayed God, in his mercy, to take me away, to close the account of my
misery. Do you ask my name? Ah! that is what pains me most. To live
unknown, a wretched outcast, in a city where I once enjoyed a name that
was respected, is what has haunted my thoughts, and tortured my
feelings. But I cannot withhold it, even though it has gone down,
tainted and dishonored. It is Henry Montford. And with this short
record I close my history, leaving the rest for those to search out who
find this paper, at my death, which cannot be long hence. “HENRY
MONTFORD. “New York, Nov. -, 184-.”
A few sighs follow the reading of the paper, but no very deep interest,
no very tender emotion, is awakened in the hearts of the goodly.
Nevertheless, it throws a flood of light upon the morals of a class of
society vulgarly termed fashionable. The meek females hold their tears
and shake their heads. Brother Spyke elongates his lean figure, draws
near, and says the whole thing is very unsatisfactory. Not one word is
let drop about the lost money.
Brother Phills will say this-that the romance is very cleverly got up,
as the theatre people say.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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