University of Virginia Library

PASSAGES
IN THE LIFE OF AN UNFORTUNATE.

Thomas Augustus Phelps was a junior clerk in
a small retail store, in an unfrequented part of
Maiden-lane. His salary was insignificant, and his
expenses were considerable; and, there being no visible
channel through which extraneous funds could
come into his possession, how he contrived, as the
saying is, “to make both ends meet,” was a problem
which his most intimate friends were utterly
unable to solve, and which was, moreover, a subject
upon which, for some reason or other, he always
declined to throw any light. He was generally
characterized as a genteel and rather well-informed
young man—that is, his dress was unexceptionable;
his address easy, forward, and flippant;
and he discoursed with uncommon fluency on a
number of subjects which he knew nothing about.

After he had gone through the business of the day,
he improved his mind, of an evening, by playing
billiards, and his morals by lounging about the saloons
and lobbies of the theatre, from which places
he criticized the performances in a very decided
manner. This he was the better enabled to do,
from being hand and glove with many of the minor
actors, by whom he was let into the secret that the
principal favorites of the town were persons destitute
of ability, but that the capabilities of the
minors were uncommon, though lost to the public
by a monstrous system of managerial mismanagement,
which bore heavily upon the whole mass,
and with intense severity upon the peculiar talents
of the several informants. But his greatest qualification
was his inexhaustible fund of what is termed
“small talk!” This he poured forth on all occasions,
in “one weak, washy, everlasting flood,” in
a way that gained him the ardent admiration of
numerous young ladies, and at last made an indelible
impression upon the susceptible heart of Miss
Julia Carmine, only surviving child of an artificial-flower
manufacturer in Division-street. Julia
was a beauteous being, in the spring of life. Her
features were strictly and chastely classical, excepting
her nose, mouth, chin, and forehead; her eyes
were exceedingly blue, her color rich and roseate,
and her auburn tresses flowed in luxuriant ringlets
down her lovely neck, which was somewhat short.
Nature had done every thing for her, setting aside
that she wore artificial curls, and had purchased the
majority of her teeth; and though her complexion
of a morning was rather sallow, yet when dressed
out, and seen by candle or gas-light, she was in
reality a very pretty looking young woman. She
had faults, to be sure—who has not? But the
greatest of them were, that she talked occasionally
a sort of mongrel French, played on the guitar, and
kept an album.

What a sacred thing is first love! and its accompanying
train of inexplicable and indescribable
feelings! and how hallowed in the imagination becomes
every spot connected with this purest of passions;
particularly the spot where a mutual reciprocation
of sentiment first took place! It is that of
which I am about to speak. Julia and Thomas
Augustus sat alone one evening in a small arbor,
or rather wooden box, in a retired corner of the
“Bowery tea-garden;”

and a variegated lamp, attached to the front of the
box, was all that shed a melancholy radiance over
the scene. Both experienced sensations unknown
till then, and they had each a glass of ice-cream
before them.

“How beautiful is the firmament, with all its
countless myriads of twinkling stars,” observed
Thomas Augustus Phelps, looking upwards.

“Beautiful indeed!” sighed Julia.

“And this ice-cream aint so coarse neither,”
said he.

“No—by no means,” responded she.

“Methinks,” continued Thomas, “I could sit for
ever thus, with thee by my side, gazing upon the
blue vault of heaven, beloved Julia!”

Julia did not answer, but her silence spoke more
eloquently than words; she bowed her head, and
it is presumed blushed, but, as the lamp wanted
trimming, there was not light enough distinctly to
ascertain that fact. Thomas Augustus gently
drew the sweet girl towards him, and oh! extremity
of bliss! she did not resist. The coldness
of worldly restraint was broken down—they exchanged
vows of everlasting fidelity, and Thomas
was about to seal the covenant on her lovely lips,
when the man that goes about to gather up the
empty glasses, unceremoniously popped his head
into the box, and observed, “that he did not allow
of them there sort of proceedings in his garden!”

Thomas Augustus would have resented this injurious
insinuation on the instant, only he was by no
means athletic, and did not possess a particle of courage.
He therefore contented himself with declaiming
for some time in a style of lofty invective, and
wound up by indignantly paying the man what he
owed him, tucking Julia under his arm, and walking
out of the shrubbery.

It is necessary, however, to premise that twelve
months antecedent to the tender passages on which
we have been dilating, Mr. Phelps commenced business
on his own account in Canal-street. His
debut was made during that auspicious period denominated
the “Canal-street fever,” when, in consequence
of the lowness of the rents in that part of
the city, every body flocked thither, which caused
the landlords to quadruple their original demands,
by which judicious proceeding they ruined their
tenants and got no rent at all. He had invariably
represented his affairs to Julia as being in a most
prosperous state; but unfortunately, though he was
a young man possessed of many virtues, a love of
truth was not one of them. Indeed, they who knew
him best, affirmed that he was a notorious liar, and
there is no reason to doubt their word. As he had
started altogether on credit, and as he spent all the
money that came in as the goods went out, when

his bills fell due, he told his creditors he was
extremely sorry, but that he had no funds to meet
their demands: they in return assured him that
they were extremely sorry to hear it, seized upon
the residue of his stock, and turned him out of
doors. This was hard to bear, and he flew on the
wings of love to find consolation in the society of
his beloved Julia; but she was not at home. The
next day he called, and still the same answer. On
the evening of the third day he was admitted to
her presence, but “Oh frailty—thy name is woman!”
she had heard of his misfortunes, and received
him with chilling politeness. The lady was
not at all mercenary; but then she had found it
convenient, as she informed him, to plight her virgin
vows to Mr. Raphael Jackson, (familiarly
termed Ralph Jackson) and they were to be married
early in the ensuing week. Thomas stood
mute and motionless, for, as the poet justly observes,

What barbed the dart and made the matter worse,
was that this Mr. Raphael Jackson—a young lawyor
with a good deal of cunning, and more impudence,
consequently likely to do well in the world
—was his most particular friend. Julia aroused
him from his trance by asking him if he would
not “stay to tea?” this offer he indignantly spurned,
and immediately quitted the premises. The
next morning he found on his table an invitation
to the wedding. It was, of course, never suspected
that he would accept it, and was purely meant as
a piece of gratuitous insolence on the part of the
bride. Whoever calculated, however, on his not
coming, reckoned without their host. “Yes!” exclaimed
he mentally, as he surveyed the perfumed
rose-colored note; “yes; I will see her once more
—for the last—ay, for the last time!”

About seven o'clock in the evening of the twenty-second
of April, 1827, a jovial wedding party were
assembled at the house of Mr. Carmine, in Division-street,
to celebrate the nuptials of his accomplished
daughter. All was prepared for the impressive ceremony.
The bride had got through shedding the
preliminary tears usual on these occasions; the
bridegroom was doing his best, as in duty bound,
to look joyous and happy; the bridesmaids were
tittering and laughing for some reason or reasons
best known to themselves; the groomsmen were
endeavoring to be uncommonly facetious, and the
clergyman had put on a look meant to rebuke all

tittering and facetiousness, when the door suddenly
opened, and a figure stalked into the room. It was
Mr. Thomas Augustus Phelps, but alas, how
changed! He looked not like one who had come
to participate in a scene of happiness. His boots
were dirty, his hat was slouched over his eyes, his
coat was buttoned up to his chin, his cravat was
far from clean, and his hands were stuck into his
trowsers' pockets. The company recoiled, the bride
uttered a faint exclamation, and the bridegroom
stepped forward and demanded in a bullying tone
of voice, “the meaning of this extraordinary intrusion?”
Phelps spoke not a word, but drew from
his right-hand coat pocket the perfumed rose-colored
invitation note, and presented it to the bridegroom.
He then drew from his left-hand coat pocket an
uncommonly large horse-pistol, upon which Mr.
Raphael Jackson retreated with great precipitation.
Phelps deliberately cocked the pistol, and an uncommon
curiosity took possession of the guests to
see which one of them he intended to sacrifice.
This interesting suspense was soon ended; for
slowly bringing the fatal weapon in a line with his
own forehead, he proceeded to pull the irrevocable
trigger. A struggle ensued, and dreadful to
relate, in the scuffle the pistol went off full in the
face of one of the fair young bridesmaids. Fortunately
she sustained no injury, which led to a suspicion
that the instrument of death had been
loaded with an eye to safety. Upon this the gallant
bridegroom experienced a revivification of valor.
He stepped forward, informed the unfortunate
Phelps that he should hear from him in the morning
through the medium of Mr. Hays, and peremptorily
ordered him to leave the room. The poor
bride, who during this scene had been rather in the
back ground, thought she now perceived a favorable
opportunity for display, and accordingly, as the
most natural expedient, commenced a fainting fit;
but there being no one sufficiently on the alert to
catch her in his arms, and having, in the hurry
of the moment, neglected the precaution of seeing
that there was a chair in her immediate vicinity,
she was obliged, when just upon the brink of insensibility,
not only to recede considerably, but also to
look around her and diverge from a straight line in
order to attain that necessary piece of furniture.
This gave such an air of insincerity to the whole
proceeding, that even her warmest admirers were
compelled to admit that the attempt was a failure.
Mr. Jackson once more asked Mr. Phelps whether
he intended to quit the room, or whether he was
waiting for him (Jackson) to put him out. Phelps
scorned to reply; a peculiar expression flitted over
his pale features, he cast an indescribable look towards
the bride, and then did as he was desired.

On the following day, about noon, a gallant Liverpool
packet was passing Sandy Hook, outward
bound. On her deck stood the principal actor in
the intended tragedy of the preceding evening.
His disappointment in love, and some fraudulent
transactions connected with his late failure, had
induced him to seek relief in change of scene.
The breeze was fair, and the vessel was careering
“o'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea” at the
rate of about nine knots an hour. Phelps stood at
the stern of the ship gazing intently on the land of
his forefathers, which was fast fading in the distance.
A slight blue line at the verge of the horizon
was all that remained to him of the home of
his childhood—the scene of so many balls, and
publics, and parties—where he had danced, and
sung, and played billiards, and eaten oysters when
a mere boy; the tears started to his eyes, he leaned
his head over the ship's side, and in a voice choked
with agony, exclaimed—

“Oh, captain, I am very sick!”

The captain, in that cheerful tone of voice with
which a man who has nothing the matter with
him consoles another who has, replied, “Never
mind, sir—you'll be better in a day or two—haul
taut the fore-top-sail halliards there! belay!”

This to Phelps, whose face exhibited as many
shades of blue, and black, and green, and yellow,
as the back of a dying dolphin, was a great consolation.
Indeed I have myself often had occasion to
observe the happy effects of similar scraps of comfort
applied to sea-sick passengers. It is so pleasant
when you are suffering under this horrible
affliction—when every minute seems an age, and
every hour an eternity—to be told, “never mind,
sir, you'll get over it in less than a week, maybe!”

Time rolled on, and nothing reached the American
shores concerning the fate of Thomas Augustus
Phelps, except a flying report that he had been
undergoing a course of exercises in the Brixton
tread-mill, when one Sunday morning, in the autumn
of the year 1829, a shabby-genteel personage
was seen strutting up Broadway. It was Phelps—
yet why was he here? His first love blessed another;
and the children that ought to have been
called Phelps, were christened Jackson. The
wooden paling of Trinity church-yard was at that
period prostrate, and the cast-iron railing had not
been erected, so that there was no obstacle to a free
ingress to and egress from the burying-ground.
Phelps wandered in among the tombs—a presentiment
of some overhanging evil weighed heavily
upon his breast, and before he had proceeded far

he came to a plain marble slab almost overgrown
with grass. A strange curiosity seized him; he
knelt down and parted the rank weeds which over-shadowed
it; a sunbeam at that moment darted
precisely on the place, and he saw, carved in legible
German-text, the simple inscription “Julia.”
He was indescribably affected; and yet he felt a
melancholy pleasure in thinking that she had too
late become sensible of his merits, and pined into
the grave in consequence of his absence. While
indulging in this train of reflection, a troop of little
boys, attracted by the extraordinary spectacle of a
man upon his kness in a church-yard, began to
gather round, shouting and pelting him with earth
and small pebbles. He arose to reprimand them;
but there having been a heavy shower of rain,
and he having white duck trowsers on, the effect
of his kneeling, upon his clothes, can, like a
young heroine's feelings, be more easily imagined
than described. He instantly, therefore, became
an object of universal observation, and the little
boys shouted and pelted more than ever. Phelps
was exasperated beyond measure; he seized one
of the young miscreants, shook him well, and
threatened the most dreadful corporeal chastisement
if he did not desist.

“Hurrah for Jackson!”[1] exclaimed the young
rebel, nothing daunted.

“Hurrah for Jackson!” chimed in his companions
in evil-doing. This pointed, though unintentional
allusion to his rival, at once unnerved
Phelps—recollections of former insults and injuries
came over him, and he strode from the burial-ground,
the boys hurraing all the while at his coattail;
when lo! who should be seen issuing from
the church porch but Mr. Raphael Jackson himself
with his own Julia, now Mrs. Jackson, hanging on
his arm! This was too much—so then it appeared
she had not pined away in his absence—she had
not died—and he had been kneeling by the side
of some one else's Julia! They passed him without
speaking, he muttered dreadful imprecations to
himself, and bent his way down Wall-street.

He is now only the wreck of his former self,
though he is more corpulent than he was wont to
be, yet it is not a healthy corpulency; and his apparel
is the extreme of what is generally denominated
“seedy.” Yet amid this moral and physical
desolation some traces of identity are yet preserved
—some glimmerings of what once was Phelps!

There is still that peculiar strut in his walk, and
he still wears his hat knowingly adjusted on one
side of his head; but he drinks like a fish, talks
politics incessantly, and his shirt-frill is much bedaubed
with snuff. What will be his final fate
depends upon ulterior circumstances; at present it
is enveloped in the mists and darkness of futurity.