“Together with the letter which announced my mother’s death, I received a casket which she requested, at her last moments, should be delivered into my hands. I had always been led to believe, that my father had died when I was a child; but in the casket I found a letter, informing me, that he was not dead, and enjoining that I should ever to study to cherish and respect him who was pointed out to me as my sire. My feelings told me at once, that my good mother had been treated with injustice, and vengeance was my first impulse.
“I had always entertained peculiar opinions about women: I had been accustomed to consider her the superior of the two beings; nay, I had gone further: I had considered her one of those benignant spirits which the disciples of the theological system introduce in their allegories,—the ultimate link between this condition and a higher and more refined humanity. I had looked upon her as the embodiment of goodness, that sweetened existence with its smiles, and made sorrow shrink into insignificance by its sympathy; as a being in whom intellect and propensities were happily not made to preponderate over the loftiest attributes of human nature—the sentiments. Holding this belief, I had worshipped her in whatever condition I found her;—in gorgeous magnificence, or in sordid rags, as pure and spotless as the lily, or polluted or stained with foulest crimes. To me she ever was woman, and that was sufficient. On account of this peculiarity, I always looked with horror upon any man that could be base enough to take any advantage of her, or give her pain. Such an individual I considered unmanned and dishonored, and would shrink from him with disgust. Judge, then, of my state of mind, when I discovered that the crime which I abhorred so much was brought so personally under my reprobation.
“In a calmer mood, however, I thought that sorrow and restitution ought to suffice to obliterate crime; that, at least, I should give the offending party an opportunity of remedying the wrong he had done. Perhaps repentance might creep into his soul. I wrote, then, to the person who had been indicated as my father. He was a wealthy planter in Trinidad. I made it known to him that I was acquainted with the secret of my parentage. I described to him the utter distress in which I, his son, was then placed, and besought him to send me a pittance to sustain that life of which he was the cause.
“Months passed, and I received no answer. Certain feelings began to rankle in my bosom; I, however, took care not to be precipitate. Still hope sustained me. I was obliged to pass days together without food. On such occasion, I would stand by some thoroughfare and watch the over-fed passers, and meditate on that strange destiny which gave to some too much, and to others too little.
“One beautiful night, the stars were clearly visible, and I loitered towards one of the bridges that span the Thames, to enjoy the happiness of watching them. There, seating myself down on one of the stone benches, I forgot for a moment my distress, and felt as I was wont to feel in happier days. The night waned:—attracted by the lurid glimmer of Antares, I fell into a reverie on the theory of the starry scintillation. It may have been one o’clock in the morning,—like the labourer whose thews and sinews were relaxed with the day’s unremitting toil; the great metropolis was buried in that comparative repose which it enjoys only at that early hour of the morning. The rattling of numberless vehicles, the shuffling of thousands of bustling wayfarers had now ceased. Nothing was to be heard but the soon-ceasing rattle of some hurrying conveyance, the measured steps of the police officers, or, perhaps, the ringing laugh of some nightly merry-maker. My eyes were fixed on the stars, and I was dreaming on the orbs of space, when suddenly the low restrained sobs of intense agony fell on my ear. I suddenly turned my head, when I beheld a woman standing on the wall, apparently ready to throw herself headlong into the river. She had a child in her arms, and she pressed it to her bosom, while she loaded it with caresses, and bathed it with tears. Her sobs were those of despair. In an instant I comprehended her intention, and creeping silently along the parapet, I suddenly stood up and seized her in my arms. She gave one convulsive shriek and swooned away.
“I had taught myself to look on misery as the actings of certain general laws: I had accustomed myself to look upon the most appalling phenomena of organic and inorganic life simply as the consummation to which they must necessarily come. I had studied to bring down to nothing the revolting aspect of misery, the bloody scenes of warriors weltering in their blood, or the ghastly hue of emaciating disease; but never before that night had there been presented to my eyes such a combination of utter misery, of gentleness, of innocence, of suffering, of goodness, and of despair, as I beheld blended in the woman whom I had thus rescued from perdition.
“She was young, as yet scarcely of the age capable to bear even the ordinary troubles of the world. Her auburn hair floated loose over her shoulders and her pale emaciated face, while the whiteness of her forehead was here and there to be seen between her dishevelled tresses. Her lacklustre eyes were as sunken as if animation had already ceased; a tattered dress hung about her skeleton frame, and her fingers were more like those of a dead than of a living creature. The babe was as pale as the moon that shone upon it. Its sweet little features were locked in a calm lethargic sleep: its spirit seemed to sympathise with that of its mother; whilst neither her alarm and swoon, nor the bleakness of the night, could rouse it from its happy slumber, or draw a murmuring cry from its lips.
“I stood for a long time, supporting the unhappy girl in my arms, anxiously watching the return of animation. Her circulation was slow, for want had fed upon her strength.
“‘Oh, oh!—where, where—am I?—no—no—I am not there’—she wanderingly muttered, as she gradually recovered.
“Her head drooped in silence, as she became conscious of her position and exposure. I questioned her delicately on the circumstances that led to her taking so fatal a resolution as the one which I had, but accidentally, prevented her from carrying into effect. After much hesitation, she told me the story of her misfortune.