“No, indeed, Joseph,” he resumed, “we must spread it, and spread it wide. We must get it into the papers, my beloved brother. We must get it into the New Orleans papers, and the Western papers, and the New York papers. Josephine must have the disgrace as my last love-touch, and I must have the sympathy of the Friends of Virtue, sweet Joseph. Oh, Lord!” and he chuckled, “what fun I shall have in my affliction reading the homilies of the moral editors! Let’s see, how will they go… Melancholy Case of Conjugal Infidelity… Yes, that’s pretty good… Free Love Invading the Family Circle… And that’s magnificent… The Results of Free Love Teachings… That’s magnificent, too. Let’s see… Another Base Violation of the Marriage Tie… Shocking Case of Seduction, Elopement, and Crime… Another Blow at the Foundations of Morality… Ruin of a Home and a Husband… Oh, they’re all good—capital! Then the articles. Lord, but won’t they be luscious! How I shall weep over the tender sympathy; how I shall mourn, yet say, it is just, over the stern condemnation of Josephine; what a moral glow I shall feel through all my being at the severe rectitude and fidelity to the best interests of morality which will pervade those high-toned editorials! Now let’s see. Let’s compose an appropriate one. It must be a piece of ignorant, stupid, brutal, sentimental twaddle, mal-apropos and blundering, and stuck full of stale quotations, or it won’t be in style. Hold on now,” and in a declamatory voice he went on as follows: “… We chronicle in another column a mournful case of conjugal perfidy, of which a too tender and confiding husband is the heart-broken victim. To what vortex are we rushing? Well may we say, in the language of the immortal dramatist, that such a deed as this—
—‘makes marriage vows
As false as dicers’ oaths. Oh! such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words! Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire!’
Capital, capital!” roared Mr. Lafitte, with a spasm of chuckling merriment, rubbing his hands gleefully, as he spoke, “that’s the stock quotation, and doesn’t it come in gloriously! Rebellious hell in the matron Josephine’s bones—Oh, upon my soul, but that’s decidedly neat! Fire away, my boy… In this melancholy tragedy which has laid low the Lares and Penates of a once happy home, and brought the severest affliction on the fond and trusting heart of a highly respectable and estimable citizen, we trace the pernicious influence of those detestable and licentious doctrines which have become, alas! too prevalent throughout the land. We allude of course to the doctrines of Free Love, and let every man in his sober senses look upon this domestic tragedy, the legitimate result of those vile teachings whose poison is spread abroad through the very air, and ask what is to be the end, when such tenets are openly disseminated? Here was a woman—we call her woman, but every true woman’s heart will rise in just indignation to clutch away the name from such a moral monster! a female fiend rather, who could defile the inviolable sanctuary of wedded life, listen to the insidious honeyed words of a base seducer, fly from the tender endearments of home, ruthlessly abandon her fond and trusting husband and innocent children—Oh, damn it,” broke in Mr. Lafitte, “that won’t do! I’ve got no children. Ah, me! what a pity. It would be so pathetic if the children could be in it—the dear, little innocent children! No matter: … abandon her fond and trusting husband, with whom she had lived so many happy years, and who had lavished on her his wealth, his good name, and all the priceless riches of a generous and affectionate nature, surrounding her with every comfort and ministering with the tenderest assiduity to her lightest want—abandon all this, and depart with her paramour to a life of shame on the voluptuous and luxurious shores of Italy. Ah, well may this modern Messalina go to Italy!