Whether you know it or not is not important to the purposes of this letter, but for seven years I have been infatuated with the woman who is my companion in this wicked business, and she has been the temptation against which I have fought and prayed, but in spite of my efforts and prayers it has grown on me, until I am no longer a man. If you still have confidence in my truthfulness I need only say that I fought this infatuation with all my strength, but I am weaker than you know, and, after a life devoted to principle, I am adrift on an unknown sea, for as God is my witness this is my first offence. In a package in my desk, with your name on the wrapper, will be found the deeds to all I possess, together with notes and accounts, and full instructions as to their management. The money I take with me is so small in amount that it will never be missed. If you manage well, and work well, in a few years you can almost rejoice that I went away as I did, for all the property I leave you is advancing in value, and will in time make you independent, if you attend to it. Although it may seem odd that I give you advice which I cannot accept myself, I desire that you be industrious and honest. You can be successful in no other way, and you are now the sole support and comfort of your mother, who, I can attest, was very good to you when you were helpless. That she has not been more affectionate with you since you have grown up has been partly my fault, for I do not believe in affection. Whether I was right or wrong does not matter now: as I seem to have been wrong in everything else, perhaps I was in that. I do not know whether you partake of my discontent or not; your mother was always contented with her home, and with whatever fortune brought her, and I hope you are like her in this; but if you are not it is only a question of time when you will travel the same road I am on, for no one constituted as I am can become a good husband, a good citizen, or a good man. I wonder that I held out as long as I did, and it is the only thing I can think of to my credit that I did not take this step years ago. No one can ever know what a struggle I have had against temptation, or how humiliated I was when I found that I must give up after all, and become the subject of scandal among the small people I despise, and although I know that no man ever deserved pity more than I do now, I am certain that there is not one who will extend to me that small favor.