To do this, there was but one process. That was flight. I must

leave this city--this country. By doing so, I remove my wife from

temptation, remove the temptation from the unhappy young man whom

it is destroying; and thus, though by a sacrifice of my own comforts

and interests, repay the debt of gratitude to my benefactor in the

only effective manner. It called for no small exercise of moral

courage and forbearance--no small benevolence--to come to this

conclusion. It must be understood that my professional business was

becoming particularly profitable. I was rising in my profession.

My clients daily increased in number; my acquaintance daily increased

in value. Besides, I loved my birthplace--thrice-hallowed--the only

region in my eyes-"The spot most worthy loving Of all beneath the sky."

But the sacrifice was to be made; and my imagination immediately

grew active for my compensation, by describing a woodland home--a

spot, remote from the crowd, where I should carry my household gods,

and set them up for my exclusive and uninvaded worship. The whole

world-wide West was open to me. A virgin land, rich in natural

wealth and splendor, it held forth the prospect of a fair field

and no favor to every newcomer. There it is not possible to keep

in thraldom the fear less heart and the active intellect. There,

no petty circle of society can fetter the energies or enfeeble

the endeavors. No mocking, stale conventionalities can usurp the

place of natural laws, and put genius and talent into the accursed

strait-jacket of routine! Thither will I go. I remembered the late

conference with my friend Kingsley, and the whole course of my

reasoning on the subject of my removal was despatched in half an

hour. "I will go to Alabama."

Such was my resolution. I was the man to make sudden resolutions.

This, however, reasoned upon with the utmost circumspection, seemed

the very best that I could make. My wife, yet pure, was rescued

from the danger that threatened her; I was saved the necessity of

taking a life so dear to my benefactor; and the unhappy young man

himself--the victim to a blind passion--having no longer in his sight

the temptation which misled him, would be left free to return to

better thoughts, and the accustomed habits of business and society.

I had concluded upon my course in the brief interval which followed

my interview with William Edgerton and my return home.

The next day I saw his father. I communicated the assurance of

the son, and renewed my own, that neither drunkenness nor gaming

was a vice. What it was that afflicted him I did not pretend to

know, but I ascribed it to want of employment; a morbid, unenergetic

temperament; the fact that he was independent, and had no rough

necessities to make him estimate the true nature and the objects

of life; and, at the close, quietly suggested that possibly there

was some affair of the heart which contributed also to his suffering.

I did not deny that his looks were wretched, but I stoutly assured

the old man that his parental fears exaggerated their wretchedness.

We had much other talk on the subject. When we were about to separate

for the day, I declared my own determination in this manner:-"I have just decided on a step, Mr. Edgerton, which perhaps will

somewhat contribute to the improvement of your son, by imposing some

additional tasks upon him. I am about to emigrate for the southwest."




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