The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862: Devoted To Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862: Devoted To Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
vague outline of the character of the man before the discovery of his
crime, is preserved in the neighborhood. As we read the true story of
Eugene Aram, lately published by an apparently reliable person, our
sense of the poetic is somewhat blunted; we feel that the lofty
character drawn by Bulwer is in many respects a creation of the
novelist, while the whole story of his love is demolished by the stern
fact of his having a wife, of no reputable character, with whom he lived
unhappily; but he was still a man of talent, of great mental, if not
moral refinement, and of indomitable ardor in the pursuit of learning.
The chief fault of his character until his one great crime was
discovered, seems to have been recklessness in pecuniary transactions,
by which he was often involved in petty difficulties. He seems to have
had a tenderness amounting to acute sensibility, for dumb animals, and
to have dreaded killing a fly more than many a man who could not, like
him, be brought to kill a fellow-being His mental acquirements, though
remarkable for an unaided man of obscure origin, would not probably have
attracted wide attention, had it not been for the notoriety caused by
the detection of his crime. How many fair girls have shed tears over
'his ill-starred love' and melancholy fate, who little dreamed that he
was a husband, in a very humble rank of life. Bulwer speaks of his
favorite walks with Madeline, and of a rustic seat still called 'The
Lovers' Scat.' It is not, I think, now pointed out, nor is the account
of his love probably more than an imaginary one, but it may be founded
upon fact, and some high-souled English girl may really, in his early
life, or when separated as he was for a long time from his wife, have
called forth all his better feelings and revealed glimpses of the beauty
of the life of two affectionate and pure beings keeping no secrets of
the heart from each other. How it must have tortured him to think that
such a life never could be his, well fitted for it as in some respects
he was, and ever haunted by the fear that the poor sham by which he was
concealed must some day be torn away, and an ignominious fate be
apportioned him! No situation can be more deplorable than that of a man
of refined and lofty nature, who has made one fatal mistake connecting
him with men far worse than himself, who are masters of his secret and
ever ready to use it for their own base purposes. Are there not many men
so situated--men near us now, who walk through life haunted by the
dreadful spectres of past misdeeds hastily committed, bitterly
repented--a phantom that can blast every joy, and from whose presence
death comes as a friendly deliverer?
THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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