CHAPTER V.
Good out of Evil—Maria before the Police Court—The Works of a Philanthropist—An Unfortunate Sickness—The Amorous Physician—Return to her Native Home—Her Marriage and the Effects of it—Despair and Desperation—Her Victims—Her Awful Murder—Reflections on Fate and Death.
About four months after the occurrences which we have just narrated, in mid-winter, a young woman sat in the garret of a wooden dwelling at the corner of Harrison avenue and Kneeland street, in the southerly portion of the city of Boston, industriously plying the needle by a small but cheerful fire. It was Maria Bickford, certainly in a much better and more encouraging situation than while sojourning at that abode of iniquity in Lowell street. Her face was worn but not melancholy, and her bosom heaved a sigh and her voice trembled, while she sung the song of “Home, sweet home.” There had been a change in her condition—good had come to her out of evil. The truth of the matter was, that the authorities, being at length informed as to the character of the establishment in Lowell street, made an onset upon it at midnight, captured the inmates, male and female, in their beds, and carried them to Leveret street jail. The next morning, while before the Police Court awaiting sentence—the price of her degradation—she was accosted by a celebrated philanthropist, who desired to speak with her. He told her that it was probable she would be sent to the House of Correction, if no intercession were made to the judge in her behalf; that if she would from that day make a resolution to change her conduct, he would try to procure her discharge, by the payment of a fine. She heard him doubtingly, yet imploringly; for her confidence in any thing like unselfishness in man was small indeed. Through a profusion of tears, which a crowd of idling by-standers ridiculed as harlot’s crocodiles, she thanked him, and gave a promise that if he helped her in that moment of freezing horror, her life should be placed at his disposal. He did effect her release by the payment of ten dollars; led her into the street and told her that she was free; and then began to urge upon her mind, in an earnest and affecting manner, the importance and the glory of reformation. He pointed out the manner by which a respectable livelihood might easily be obtained, if she would but adhere to a resolution never again to fall into the arms of vice.[8] Maria’s heart leaped with gratitude, and she could not give utterance to her feelings in the lameness of language. She pressed his hand and watched his benevolent countenance, and took courage from his unostentatious demeanor. Although betrayed most piteously thus far in life, by every man she had known as an acquaintance, still a conviction dwelt in her nature that there were yet men on earth who were truthful and virtuous in the sight of heaven. Sunlight to thy soul poor thing! you were right. Following the suggestions of this humane individual, Maria applied for work at the counter of an extensive tailoring establishment in Washington street. It was readily obtained. By this she could earn, and was earning, a livelihood. Solitude was now her society, and her voice of song oozed through the shingles of the roof, and without was heard by the passer by. In her hours of recreation, her mind was occupied by literary pursuits. The epistle “to a friend,” as given below, was written by her, and is one of the very best pieces of composition our eyes ever met with. It was forwarded by her to the Editor of the Boston “Olive Branch,” who published it with glowing commendations, and it afterwards went the rounds of the newspaper press throughout this country and Europe.
TO A REFORMED FEMALE FRIEND.
Life has its hours of sentiment and romance, which Time, with his envious wing, can never darken or obliterate. Such bright and pleasant hours we have had, never to be forgotten—such happy moments, in the friendly intercourse of thought and feeling we have enjoyed. We have wandered in the gardens of Fancy and Hope, and gathered the mayflowers of the spirit—the fadeless roses of the heart. We have had seasons of intimate converse of pure enjoyment, such as lend to life a halcyon wing of rainbow hue, as it glides on, with swift pinion, to its infinite home.
There is a celestial calm—an elevated joy, in the trance of mind; it is a pure and quiet sense of nobler being. There is a sweet serenity—a bliss divine, in the simple and noiseless expressions of virtuous esteem and friendship. And have we not had such serenities and joys, consecrated on the memory and the heart? Ah, who would lose the remembrance of pleasures past—the light of by-gone days, when the confidence of friendship, and the hope of its perpetuity—when the festivals of intellect and the delights of sympathy were truly ours, such as raise and illumine a strengthening attachment, with the fond endearments and bright emotions of undeceitful and happy spirits?
The fair and gentle hand of nature has spread her beauties and her wealth around our pathway, wherewith to make us rich and blest; and if we welcome not her lavish kindness and constant care, some sordid sentiment must blind our minds, or guilty stain defile our hearts. In the dim, hushed hour of twilight, I have sat by my window, and looked, in quiet thought, at the pensile boughs of the willow tree, waving gently their leaves of sadness, and found more of rapture, undimmed by earth, than earth’s brightest honors could bestow. I have wandered over the silent graves of changed humanity, and, wrapped in lonely musings on the sleeping dust of the departed, and on the distant home of immortal being, I have felt more true and tranquil joy than the gathered wealth of the world could ever afford.
To the eye of reason, raised and enlightened by truth, how little, comparatively, is there of what is great and good in the restless pursuit of unenjoyed opulence and honor, or in the transient distinctions of rank and power. Is not the mind, with its electric thought, and the heart, with its sublime emotions—the one darting through the elevated regions of philosophy, the other meandering through the beauteous paradise of poesy—the lasting and essential worth of man—the lofty majesty of merit—the eternal divinity within him? Is not his free and deathless spirit—from heaven descended—over earth outspreading—extending through all time—collecting the treasures of all realms—and, like a vestal fire that struggles to go up to its smiling source, aspiring ever to ascend to that blest home of truth and goodness, “the bosom of its Father and its God”—the pride of his distinction—the grandeur of his glory?