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There are evils in the world, upon which the eloquence of the orator,
the lyre of the poet, and the deep and over-wrought touches of the pencil
and the pen, have dwelt almost in vain. In their description, the wealth of
language is turned into penury;—the darkest dream of anguish and distress,
but faintly shadows forth the stern and moving reality. The strong and
emphatic language of Holy Writ; the burning words of David and of Solomon,
are almost impuissant when they are employed in painting the awful
horror of infidel unbelief, and that destruction of the body and soul which follows
in the train of Protean drunkenness. They are more dire than the fabled
Furies; the abysses they open are fiercer than Cocytus or Plegathon;—
their grasp is more powerful than the serpents of Laocoon;—the burthens
which they impart are more wearisome than the stone of Sysiphus or the
wheel of lxion; and their ascendency is unbroken, until the understanding
is bewildered, and the clouded eye becomes tearless; until the heart becomes
as adamant, and the spirit is goaded and restless beneath the dominions of
remorse; till the ear tingles with the adder-hisses of coward conscience, and
the unnerved bosom writhes in the emotions of regret which pierce like a
scorpion's sting.

Infidelity and intemperance go hand in hand. They bid the spirit of
youth bow down at an unholy shrine; and the sweetest affections, the dearest
hopes and fondest visions of earth are offered up as incense to the mysterious
divinity of unbelief. This is no ideal picture; the wide world is full of
the afflictions that are summoned up like clouds around the devious pathway
of the blasphemer and the drunkard. The red wine brightens alluringly
in the goblet; the shadowy illusions of the sceptic come but for a
litte season with a soothing unction to his mind; but anon there steals to the
one the wormwood dregs of bitter regret; to the other the clouds which
obscure the sun-shine of hope; which spread a mournful curtain over the
beautiful scenes of human existence, and create unutterable forebodings of
that undiscovered country beyond the land of death.

I have little hope that the tale which I am about to relate, will cause any
to release the delusions which they have grasped; but I am never without
hope. I would that my pen were dipped in the empyreal fire of Heaven,
that I might show the light which they reject who turn from the word of
inspiration. I would I might gather upon canvass, the darkness of the
midnight cloud, and the fierce lightning of the tempest; I would form a
panorama of terrors, which should shadow forth to the mad votary of Bacchus,
and the victim of unbelief, the abyss of destruction upon which they
are rushing; which should say to them, “turn ye at my reproof, and heed
not the song of the charmer, charm ye ever so wisely.”

It was a stormy evening in January, 18—, when my friend Everard
Graham and myself were seated by our comfortable grate, in the

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seminary of G—. The coal was reddening behind the bars of its prison;
and the cheerfulness of our little room was enhanced by the storm without.
We had lately come up from recitations and prayers in the chapel; and had
for some time been seated in silence, each indulging in our respective
thoughts.—The snow came pattering gently against the windows; and by
way of beguiling the time, I arose and breathed upon a pane, and wrote
thereon my humble initials.—Without, the scene was troublous and uninviting.
The wide-stretching inland was obscured by the thick wing of the
wintry tempest; the wild anthem of the night-wind was loud and dissonant;
and I soon found that the shadows of the scene around me, were gathering
over my mind. My thoughts went forth amidst the curtained skies of evening;
and mighty ideas of infinity and boundless space of the mystery of
the air—the distance whence the little motes of snow had fallen; and I was
absorbed in meditation.

I was roused from my reverie by the entrance of a lad bearing a letter.
I stepped forward; it was for my friend. His large hazle eye was lit up
pleasantly, and a kindly smile of unwonted delight passed over his brow and
cheek. He had for some days been moody and restless;—and I marked his
emotions of pleasure with a lively enjoyment, to which an instant before I
was a stranger.

“This is the most lucky moment to receive a letter that I ever experienced,”
said Graham, indulging in that laugh which comes from the heart.
“You see,” said he, “that it is from a woman;—the prima mulieris of my
affections. But I belie her; she is not a woman, in the general acceptation
of the term—she is an angel.”

I glanced at the letter as he extended it to me,—and the direction was
really most beautiful. The blue surface of the epistle seemed to have just
passed from beneath the hands of the copperplate printer. “You see,” said
Graham, “that it is beautiful; now let me read it; and as you are my confidant,
I will show you the Alpha and the Omega of it.” He broke the seal;
it began with “Dearest Everard,” and closed with “forever your's,
Emile Barton.”

“You are not entitled to further freedom,” said my friend: “now, go meditate,
and let thy greedy eyes `devour up her discourse;' or, seeing your
curiosity is awakened, I will give you her picture, `for you to look upon,' as
the primmer hath it.”

He drew from his bosom a miniature, suspended by a golden chain;
“there,” said he, “is one half of my heart. It is the most beautiful half by
far, and I dare be sworn, the most innocent. Now if you admire it, let your
admiration be unspeakable; for I shall not be at home, during the next half
hour to any body. To save inquiries, however, I will say a word or two to
you respecting her. She is my intended; I first knew her at the Saratoga
cotillions;—her father is an Englishman; but her mother is one of our cis-atlantic
daughters of Eve. It is the long lapse of time since I have heard from the
dear girl, that has given me the blues so of late.”

I took the miniature; and never shall I forget the unsullied and perfect
beauty that then dawned upon me. The stainless brow was shaded with
rich clusters and braids of hair, of the color of gold in shadow; the eye
was mild and blue; but about the sweet lips, that seemed the balmy prison
gates of delicious kisses, and the dimpled and rose-leaf check, there played
such a pure and sanctified smile, that the picture seemed to be instinct with

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the life of Heaven. I was dumb with exquisite admiration:—and I seemed
to be surrounded by the perfect presence ef Venus. Little did I imagine,
as I gazed upon that delicately moulded face, that the clouds of early sorrow
would so soon overshadow the fair brow; that the white-robed bosom would
so soon yearn with the pangs of unrequited affection; that the azure eye
and matchless cheek would be dimmed and stained with tears shed in
secret;—that they would be deluged with the bitter waters of a bursting
heart! But let me not anticipate.

Half an hour passed without a word having been spoken by either of us.
The reflections which the picture had conjured up, kept me silent; and Graham
read and re-read his letter, without noticing my pleasurable reverie.
At length he said—“well, you seem half intoxicated—are you dizzy with
rapture? I assure you, if you feel any sensation from that little counterfeit,
how could you gaze on the original? You would become an enthusiast and
a worshipper at first sight, as I did. But I am too jocose for so sacred a
theme; and my pleasure is already damped by the reflection, that my spirituelic
has, ere this, left America, in the packet of the 16th, for England.
A vast estate has fallen to her father, there; and be, with his whole family,
have repaired from Barton Hill to Ludgate Hill, or some other hill in London.
Cruel girl! She was too affectionate to endure the emotions of a farewell,
and wrote me late, in consequence. She had quoted scripture to me in her
epistle;—something odd for her; but it is certainly expressive. She is not
aware that I eschew the whole of that book which she holds so sacred. But
we will not jar each other on that topic. I shall see her by June, in the
British metropolis! I might as well make my couch on that ardent grate,
as to remain where she is not.”

I returned to him the treasure he had shown me; and if I indulged in
unmingled encomium upon its pervading loveliness, I trust it was not undeserved
or hypocritical. The eye of my friend glistened with gratification.

“There is never a sweet without its bitter.” he said; “often when that
beloved girl and I have walked along the vernal shore of the lake which
stretches along by the mansion of her father, as I gazed upon her speaking
eye and sinless brow, I have thought myself utterly unworthy of her affection.
She is too full of etherial purity for my guilt-stained soul. You know,
what she does not, that I am a sceptic. Her ductile and elastic spirit is full
of praise to God when she looks upon his works. Often has she spoke to
me of the mercies of Heaven, in making us so supremely happy in our love;
and, like all her sex, her woman's heart seems to forbode evil from the
transitory nature of the things of this world. How many times, as we have
reposed beneath the trellised vines of her father's garden, have I pressed
her to my throbbing bosom, and kissed away the tears which sensibility
had drawn to her cheek! But I am half-moralizing. It is a sombre theme,
with all its delight; and I'll give it up for something more exhilerating. Do
you love Burgundy?”

As he made this interrogation, he went to his closet, and drew forth a bottle
of the material therefrom; he cut the wax from its top, and drawing the
long cork from a locum tenens which it had held while in the south of France,
and while tilted upon the Atlantic, he filled a glass, and presenting it to me,
filled another for himself. I refused his offer to renew my draught, and soon
after retired.

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When I awoke in the morning, the room was full of the smoke of the
lamp; and Graham had not been in bed. The wine had disappeared from
the bottle, and the lamp was upset upon the miniature which he had laid
upon the table, and it was broken. Graham was stupified with wine, and
his face looked feverish and sick. The loss of his miniature was a source of
deep regret; and he lamented it as a fearful omen for the future.

Three months from that morning Graham sailed for England. His education
was by no means complete; but he was the idol of an indulgent and
wealthy father; who had long favored his determination of making the tour
of Europe. If I ever parted from a friend with regret, it was from Everard
Graham. He had his faults; but maugre them all, I loved him. We vowed
mutual and abiding friendship, and a constant correspondence; and as my
design of visiting England was well known and approved of by my parents,
I hesitated not to pledge myself to meet him in the British metropolis, as
soon as my minority should have expired.

Two years after, during which time I had not heard a word from my
friend, I was in London. I will not attempt to describe my feelings as our
majestic vessel glided up the Thames. It was a beautiful day in September,
when I first saw at a distance the great cloud of smoke which overhung the
British capital. Oddly enough, the weather was clear; and the yellow sun
lit up the countless sails that were passing to and fro, with singular beauty.
In a short space, I found myself in Picket street, in the neighborhood of
Waterloo Bridge and Temple Bar; anon, I was mingling with the restless
crowd that moved along Fleet street, to Ludgate Hill. I soon saw St. Paul's—
that mighty edifice, whose towering dome looks down upon the riches and
poverty—the happiness and misery of nearly two millions of immortal souls.

I pass over the pleasure and newness of enjoyment, with which I looked
upon the wonders of London, after my letters of introduction had been
delivered, and my check had been honored by my banker. It was to me a
kind of epoch, when I first saw the pave of Regent street Quadrant, and
when I walked Great Russell street to Drury Lane Theatre. The inquiries
I had made among my friends for Graham, however, had all proved ineffectual.
He had brought introductory letters to some of them, and was
known as a lounger at the New England Coffee house, previous to his leaving
London for the continent.

I was one day returning to my hotel, after a visit to the famous Abbey of
Westminster, when the thought struck me that I would return on the river.
I accordingly chartered a small boat near Westminster stairs, requesting to
be “set down” at Waterloo Bridge. Through the dulness of my gondolier,
who seemed a half-intoxicated, song-singing varlet, I was taken even past
Blackfriars, and left at the foot of an obscure lane, leading into Thames
street, whose lamps, already lighted, were twinkling in the distance. The
first large and heavy drops of an approaching thunder shower excited me to
haste; and the vivid flashes of lightning that ever and anon darted athwart
the gloom, were “spurs to prick the sides of my intent.” I hurried on; but
the storm had already burst above me; and in a moment of hesitation, I
paused and knocked at the low door of an obscure and dingy dwelling,
whence the only light issued that I had witnessed, since I left my tuneful
Arion of the Thames. It was opened by a bloated, fierce looking female,
who, in a gruff voice, asked me what I wanted? A loud peal of thunder
drowned my reply. I pointed without; and the action seemed to content

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her. She marshalled me into a low back room, requesting me to step lightly
as I entered. I followed her on tip-toe, and seated myself on a broken bench,
by the dying embers of a flickering fire.

The apartment presented a cheerless picture of poverty and desolation.
One or two mutilated chairs stood near a scantily furnished table in the centre
of the room. In one corner, on a low mat, lay a poor emaciated form, apparently
groaning in a troubled sleep. I drew near, and as the woman
re-entered with a lamp, I was struck with astonishment. The face was pale,
but interesting; the eye-lids were of a dark purple, and the cheek hollow.
Pressing his lips as if to nerve him to some imaginary conflict, he opened
his eyes full upon me, as the light shone over his lowly pallet. Never shall I
forget that look! The blood rushed rapidly to his high forehead—it retreated
again to his heart, and left him deadly pale. He reached forth his hand, and
in faltering accents, pronounced my name. I looked for a moment in doubtful
recognition; it was but for a moment: he pronounced the name of
Everard Graham. My head grew dizzy—my sight failed me, and I was
insensible.

When I recovered, my once high-souled and honorable friend was a lifeless
corpse before me. The struggle had been too powerful for him to endure,
and life had ceased in its mighty influence. I made enquiries of the
unseemly being under whose roof I had taken shelter; and learned that he
had for the past two months, been an inmate of her miserable dwelling. His
last half crown had been paid her the day before; and there remained no
effects to compensate her for her attentions, if he had lived longer. There
was only a packet in his hat, she said; and that she had made him a solemn
promise to take to the London Post Office. She took down the hat, and
handed me the packet. It was sealed with black, and bore my direction,
with a line to the overseer of the London Post Office, requesting it to be sent
to America. Finding my efforts ineffectual to persuade the woman that the
packet bore my name, I purchased it from her at the price of a guinea; and
leaving her a sufficient sum to defray the funeral obsequies of Graham, and
promising to call early the next day, I departed on the cessation of the storm.

On reaching my hotel, I dismissed my varlet from my room, and throwing
myself on a sofa, I opened the packet and devoured its contents. It was
smoky and mutilated; but I overcame the interlineations, and read as follows:

London, October, 18—.

“To you, my dearly-cherished friend, now that all hope of seeing you has
passed away forever, may I now confide the secrets of the last two years of
my awful life. I shudder to look back upon them, but there is no alternative.
If this faintly-written record should ever reach you, let it be to you the beacon
of a mighty warning. I am dying in a foreign land, surrounded by many
to whom I might apply for relief, were I not a midnight murderer, shunning
the day, and an irreclaimable sot. The weight of my crimes has recoiled
back upon my heart, with a keen and undying retribution. I have sown
the winds of intemperance and unbelief—I am reaping the whirlwinds of
unutterable monition. The fires of agonizing remorse are burning in my
blood; the monitory voice of a struggling conscience is thundering in my
ears, and I experience the enkindled pangs of a mental hell. Oh, God!
with what direful punishment have my iniquities overwhelmed me! But I
must on.

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You know the secret of my early love. You know the embarkation of
Emile Barton for England, and that I followed her soon. Oh, that I could
describe to you the Eden of happiness that dawned upon me the first summer
I spent in England. We were married; and time went by with his
wings glittering in the pearls of hope, and his brow clothed in sunshine. We
made a delightful tour on the continent, and refurned with joyful hearts to
our metropolitan home; and a lovely daughter was at last the pledge of our
affection. But in an evil hour, I surrendered myself to the demon of
drunkenness, and he bound my bosom in fetters of iron. I became the
frequenter of the hell's in St. James'; a tippler of Johnson's spirits, at the
Surry Theatre, and a stranger to my home. I wasted all my patrimony, and
the splendid estate of my kind Emile, in one short week, at the gaming-table.
I reviled the Scriptures in her presence; I neglected our darling child:—
in short, I became a madman.

I returned home one night, and found the bailiffs at my threshold. Our
mansion in town was sold, and we rented a pleasant cottoge in Hampstead.
Here, if I had not been more remorseless than the grave, I should have
paused upon my dark career. But I was too much depraved. I became
more and more estranged from the angel of my youth; I repulsed her overflowing
affection, and saw her fading away under the influence of my cruelty.
She had renounced fashionable life for my sake, and it had been our intention
to return to America, whither her parents had already gone expecting us
soon to follow.

Let me be brief. As I opened, one moonlit evening, the little gate that
led up to our Hamstead residence, I saw my Emile leaning upon the shoulder
of a young man apparently weeping. A hellish suspicion that she had dishonored
me, rushed upon my brain; and stealthily approaching, I drew a
stiletto from my bosom and stabbed her to the heart. She turned and fixed
upon me a look of alternate surprise, reproach, and forgiveness—shrieked,
and fell lifeless at my feet.—It was her brother.

I cannot long proceed. Since that fatal hour, I have been scorched with
the lightnings of reproachful thought, I have been a scathed and skulking
fugitive in the house of a miserable fish-woman. I have quaffed deeply of
the delicious cup of intoxication; I have found its dregs to be gall and worm-wood.
My health is wasted—my hopes are dead:—and the earth seems
yawning to clasp me to its icy bosom. Would that I were dead! Would to
God, that I could find that annihilation in which I once believed, but for
which I have long ceased to hope! Twice have I swallowed poison; the
potent drug has lain harmless within me: and God still bids me live and suffer.
My wife is buried in a quiet church-yard at Hamstead; and my weakness
has at last prevented me from indulging the mournful office of weeping at
midnight over her peaceful grave. My child still lives; and is the fair and
sunny image of her sainted mother. If she ever visits America, and this
should reach you, do not—oh! do not acquaint her with the unhappy fate of
her parents; of that father who was a wretch,—of that spotless mother
who loved me `not wisely, but too well.' I can—” * * *

Here the Mss. ended. I give it to the reader as I received it. The next
day the remains of Graham were interred in the Potter's Field of one of the
Alms-houses in Kingsland road.

The little daughter of my lost friend, is with the parents of her mother,
in America. She is the counterpart of her who bore her;—and like her mother

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in her youth, beloved by all, and caressed with enthusiasm. She is the only
light thrown upon the sombre history of her mother's sorrow, and her father's
guilt.

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