Such was the beginning of a correspondence of over a hundred letters, and continuing nearly a year. A careful perusal of all of them, in the order in which they were penned, indicates most clearly the phases of an attachment as fatal to an innocent, unfortunate girl, as it was heartless and betraying on the part of Maxwell. The first impulses of their affections were doubtless mutually sincere. Afterwards the feeling of Theodore changed, or his lust triumphed over the better qualities of his nature. And the truth is not here to be disguised, that the love of a man long immersed in the vices of slavery, and nurtured in slavery’s very lap, (as Maxwell had been, from birth,) cannot be reckoned but as the offspring of unmitigated sensuality. The infamy of such a life is seldom surpassed by the atrocities of ocean piracy. A slaveholder cannot appreciate the sublimity and purity of the guardian angel, Virtue. Deadened in feeling by long familiarity with vice, and steeled to all substantial goodness by the inhumanity of the traffic in female loveliness, he desires no higher or purer delight than sensual indulgence. Where earthly prospects are full of promise, the dark demon of lust intrudes, and, strengthened by possession, flaps his wings in exultation that the laws of a Christian community are inadequate to prevent the accomplishment of his dark designs. He riots in the possession of numberless victims to his rapacious appetite! Youth, innocence and beauty are immolated, at his bidding, on the altars of licentiousness!
Wo to the fair daughter of the North, whose pure soul is at the mercy of the Southern hyena! Wo to that spirit of slavish reverence for wealth, which winks at any crime, if the criminal be only a man of wealth! In this penurious and licentious age, money is the arch destroyer of female chastity. Wo to the female votaries of Wealth and Fashion, whose feet are in the snares of the soul-destroying seducer! Better to pine in want till the coming of grey hairs, and die unbefriended, than yield thy honor, poor worldling, to the exacting blandishments of wealth!
The letter of young Maxwell, as above given, may be regarded not only as a fair specimen of the literature of slavery, but likewise as an ebullition of that chivalric spirit which is the peculiar boast of the Southron. Love, pistols, seduction, murder, dogs, horses, alligators, and improvident indolence, are the ingredients of Southern chivalry. All the letters of Theodore to Maria, now in our possession, abound in the same swaggering emptiness. Many of them are filled with the grossest obscenity. It would be foreign to our purpose to insert them here; our history is sufficiently blackened with human frailty, without them.
But we cannot well refrain from presenting the reader with one more of Maria’s letters, evidently written under the withering influence of disappointment and shame. Still the repulsive brutality of Maxwell could not stifle the flame of FIRST LOVE, that burned within her confiding, forgiving, repentant heart. To his iron scoffs she returned tears, tenderness, and supplications.
June, Wednesday Evening.
Beloved Theodore: Shall we ever again meet? Shall I indeed ever again listen to that sweet voice—that voice which sometimes bears such unkind words—and will it tell me again that it loves me, with the selfsame accents that ever ring in my fascinated ear? But oh, Theodore, speak unkindly no more—no more neglect. I feel that there is a stain upon my soul which all the waters of Jordan could not cleanse. But, Theodore, you swore your fidelity in the face of Heaven. If you continue your neglect, I shall die.
Oh, this love is a fever—a fever which has no antidote but death for me! Could I but blot that fatal night from the scroll of time, my bliss would never end. Why did the moon look down so palely, and the gold stars laugh? You bathed my temples in the pearly dew, and spoke so kindly—Oh, were you false even then? And I your victim!
Avaunt! avaunt! thou horrid dream! Begone! He is still true—my soul’s light—my Theodore! But seldom he comes, or writes to me, of late. Dearest love, I thought to meet you yesterday, at your boarding-house. I called with Miss R. But you were gone, and (would you think it?) your landlady tossed her head slyly, and said: “Perhaps he went out of town to some grave-yard, last night!” Horrible! How ugly in her to say that! I heeded not her base insinuation.
Would you suppose it? I went into your bedroom. I contrived to get there unobserved. I was there but a moment—a precious moment. Don’t think it wrong, don’t scold me, dear—but I kissed your pillow, and left a tear-drop on it. I could not help it, dearest, when I reflected that your darling head had rested there so often and so lately. Oh, that I were now at your side! Every thing is so desolate without you—every thing so harrows up the past! Oh that I could forget the past! But I will not be miserable. I will be grateful to Heaven that I have been loved by you.