Télémaque.
In the beautiful season of youth, when life is just budding forth in all the dewy freshness of ardent hope; when the heart is buoyant, and the energies alive, and panting after objects around which to shed the virtuous influence of their association, oh! then it is that we feel, like the harp that is delicately attuned, the full force of every impression:—of what moment, therefore, are those early connections and restraints which are voluntarily assumed to fit us for our companionship with the world, or in other words to form the character by which we are to be known and appreciated among our fellow men; but that character when formed, like the vestal fire of the ancients, demands the constant vigilance of our noblest faculties to keep alive and perpetuate.
George Morris was in his twenty-fourth year, when partly by the intercession of rich relatives, and in a great measure by the possession of personal endowments of no ordinary kind, he was called upon to assume an office of public trust. I knew him well. Gay without frivolity—proud in the consciousness of correct principle, and gifted with enviable powers of pleasing, his career, indeed, seemed to offer the rich rewards, if not of honorable fame, at least of high respectability. He loved, and after a short courtship, was wedded. Never were two hearts more willingly allied. The whole ardor of his soul was devoted to the fair being whom he had chosen for his own, and in the retirement of his home did he acknowledge his earthly happiness. Did reflection dwell on the noise and bustle of the world without, it was only to assure him of the comforts of his peaceful fire-side. Thus did time glide on with silken wing, dispensing the calm and rational pleasures of domestic life, which Morris of all others was so formed to appreciate. He began his career, which it was foretold would be so honorable to him, in the capacity of one of the chief officers of an institution of public monetary trust. Here, with principles of integrity, deep rooted as the rock, he persevered in industrious habits, and by continued vigilance deservedly won the esteem of the community. His probity had been tested, and the man of business implicitly confided in him. Society courted him. Living in a populous city, as years progressed, he occupied an advanced position among his fellow men—honorable alike to himself and to a growing family: no cares had with him an abiding place, for his children, whom he dearly loved, were gladdening the father’s heart, and yielding him bright hopes for the future. All was happiness—all love and tranquillity. Who then would venture to disturb this domestic Eden? What baneful influence could bring desolation here? Who could wring the tear of anguish from that young and doating mother—or the helping cry from that unprotected child—who convert, as with magic wand, the happy homestead into the refuge of want and affliction? The husband! the father himself! Mystery of mysteries! yet did Morris work to himself this very ruin. Lured by the expensive fashions of the day, the splendid equipage, and the gay coterie of wealth, and desirous to equal, if not eclipse the brilliance which he saw in the circles wherein he was called to move, he had given the rein to his appetite and ambition, until he was forced to do an act—an act from which he once would have shrunk aghast, with horror and dismay. He defrauded, and was detected—he fled: but could he avoid himself? Could he escape the guilty conscience—the bitter remorse? It was in vain. Go where he would, fancy would revert to that blighted, ruined home; and the thought of that one withering act—it was insupportable—it was madness. His reputation was irrecoverably gone, and he roamed abroad far from his native land—a wandering outcast. Of what avail were now to him the common blessings of nature? the light to him was as the darkness—the very air was heavy, and laden as with the vapors of a dungeon—the world itself was one vast prison-house. Did he sleep—frightful phantoms would haunt his couch, and drive away repose; supplicating hands of beggared orphans and stricken widows would rise in airy forms, while strange, unearthly voices would cry aloud, and pierce the air in wail and lamentation, then die away as if in mock and derision.
Afar from country, relatives and friends, lived the Defaulter. Bitter was the cup which that man drained to the very dregs. Providence had set its sure seal of condemnation on his destiny, and although the laws of man were impotent, the great law of the Omniscient failed not. There was no retreat from that presence, which hath so solemnly declared “thou shalt not steal.”
At length news was brought to him from afar—it told him that the wife of his bosom was dead—his children dependant upon the charity of strangers. It was upon the receipt of this intelligence that I met Morris, who was dwelling in a retired part of one of the chief cities upon the Continent. I dared not think upon what might be the probable result of my interview. Conflicting emotions were agitating my breast, but I had fully resolved on the meeting, and on my arrival accordingly, sought out his residence. It was about eight o’clock, of a summer’s night, that, in an abstracted mood, I sauntered leisurely toward the house. Having presented myself, I was admitted to a small chamber, neatly furnished, where I found him alone. I knew not how to begin, how to address myself to my early friend—so altered. He was lying on a couch, evidently in the last stage of a fever. You felt at once he was a dying man. His presence bewildered me; the hollow and glassy eye riveted my gaze, until recollecting myself, in a subdued tone I spoke of the country I had left—my object in travelling—my desire to obtain tidings of himself; and then ventured to recall his memory to the many happy days we had spent in each other’s society.
“Gone, gone!” said he, groaning aloud, and seeming to awaken from a listless reverie. In a moment he continued. “Will not one human creature compassionate George Morris?—a stranger in a strange land! My Julia—my wife—the mother of my little ones, they tell me is dead; and I, who loved her so, poor thing, they say was her destroyer. Oh, God! have mercy on thy creature, I feel thy indignation, and am smitten in the dust. Come death, come the grave—welcome your embraces! But I cannot—cannot endure the iron that is now thrusting itself in my soul.”
There is something grand and terrible in the moral subjugation of man.
“L——,” he faintly articulated, after a pause, during which he wept—yes, wept for the first and last time, “I feel that I am dying—thank God! for his mercy; forgive, my friend, the weakness of these tears—they are of contrition—of—of penitence.”
Exhausted by this effort, he sank into my arms.
“L——,” continued he, reviving, and raising his voice—“do you not see her—there L——, there she is, she’s beckoning to me—she looks the same as on that bridal night—she smiles, too, upon me—and look, L——, look, she forgives me—I come! we were sundered once, but now they cannot disunite us.”