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1Author:  Tucker Beverley 1784-1851Add
 Title:  George Balcombe  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: At length, issuing from the wood, I entered a prairie, more beautiful than any I had yet seen. The surface, gently undulating, presented innumerable swells, on which the eye might rest with pleasure. Many of these were capped with clumps and groves of trees, thus interrupting the dull uniformity which generally wearies the traveller in these vast expanses. I gazed around for a moment with delight but soon found leisure to observe that my road had become alarmingly indistinct. It is easy, indeed, to follow the faintest trace through a prairie. The beaten track, however narrow, wears a peculiar aspect, which makes it distinguishable even at a distance. But the name of Arlington, the place of my destination, denoted at least a village; while the tedious path which I was travelling seemed more like to terminate in the midst of the prairie, than to lead to a public haunt of men. I feared I had missed my way, and looked eagerly ahead for some traveller, who might set me right, if astray. But I looked in vain. The prairie lay before me, a wide waste, without one moving object. The sun had just gone down; and as my horse, enlivened by the shade and the freshness of evening, seemed to recover his mettle, I determined to push on to such termination as my path might lead to. “I wrote you, under date of March tenth, that the bill remitted by you for one thousand dollars, drawn by Edward Montague on the house of Tompkins and Todd of this city, had been paid by a draft on Bell and Brothers of Liverpool, England. This draft I remitted, according to your directions, to my friend John Ferguson, of the house of Ferguson and Partridge, our correspondents there, with instructions to obtain, if possible, from the same house, a draft on the county of Northumberland. In this he succeeded, by procuring a draft on Edward Raby, Esq. of that county, for a like amount. “A draft drawn by Edward Montague, Esq., for one thousand dollars, was this day presented, and paid by us in pursuance of your standing instructions. “The draft of Messrs. Tompkins and Todd, on account of Mr. Montague's annuity, is to hand, and has been duly honoured. “Among the crosses of a wayward destiny, it is not the least, that for so many years I have lost all trace of the only man on earth to whom I could look for kindness or sympathy. Since accident has discovered to me your residence, I have felt as if fate might have in store for me some solace for a life of poverty and disgrace. For the last, indeed, there is no remedy; for the opinion of others cannot stifle the voice of self-reproach, nor deaden the sense of merited dishonour. But, bad as these are, (and they are enough to poison all enjoyment, to extinguish all hope, and to turn the very light of heaven into blackness,) they may be rendered more intolerable by the cold scorn of the world, by the unappeased wants of nature, and by the constant view of sufferings, brought by ourselves on those we love. This complication of evil has been my lot; and if one ray of comfort has ever shot into my benighted mind, it came with the thought, that he who knew me best knew all my fault, but did not think me vile. But what reason have I to think this? Why may not the misconstruction, which conscience has denied me power to correct, have reached you uncontradicted? How can I hope that you have not been told, that the lip, on which, with your last blessing, you left the kiss of pure, and generous, and ill-requited love, has not been since steeped in the pollution of a villain's breath? All this may have been told you. All this you may believe. But, whatever else may be credited against me, you will never doubt my truth. No, George; the fearful proof I once gave that I am incapable of deception, is not forgotten. Take, then, my single word, against all the world can say, that that hallowed kiss `my lip has virgined' to this hour. VOL. I.—M. Except the cold and clammy brow of my dying father, no touch of man has since invaded it; nor has one smile profaned it, since in that moment I consecrated it to virtue. “It is not the purpose of this letter to reproach you with your crimes, or to degrade myself by fruitless complaint of the wretchedness they have brought upon me. My weak voice can add no terrors to the thunders of conscience. The history of my sufferings would be superfluous. So far as you are capable of comprehending them, you already know them. The want of the necessaries of life you can appreciate. Of the sting of self-reproach to a conscience not rendered callous by crime, of the deep sense of irreparable dishonour, of the misery of witnessing distress brought by our fault on those we love, you can form no conception.
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