Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Wayne County, Ind.) 1831-1837, 1834-03-22
From Ne Uestern Gem.
JANE ROBSON.
BY MRS. JULIA L. DUPONT.
For her their smiles more
Familiar faces wore:
Voices once kind, had learned the strangers tone

O0C0 strangers tone.
Hensans.
II is not to the fields ofromance we must turn
for the most useful, because most applicable les
sons of life. High and startling morals may be
occasionally drawn from its pages, but they have
little bearing upon the humble and common
walks of cxistcncc. The dramatis persona Of a
world, whose fictitious colors all distinct and
strongly Defined present bu! few hints eligible
among the real jOurneyers of path where good
and evil, happiness and misery, are inseparably
mingled, and whose destiny is woven web of
light and shades melting one into the other. 1t
is from our fellow travellers we must gather prac-
teal monitions, and from these we may derive
them daily The lowest-the weakest the
vilest. in state where all are frai and when that
is not necessary dark which is not altogether light
may afford lessons of instruction: lessons, not
adapted to the attainment of splendid virtues or
ofdeeds of glory, but that teach patience to the
miserable-charity TO the unforgiving- bencyol-
cnce to the fortunate & hope to the fallen. Such
is the moral to be derived from the circumstan-
ces Of this little Sketch, circumstances neither
drawn from nor embellishcd bv fiction Jane
Robson was not merely the child of obscuritv
but the creature ofguilt and shamc-one upon
whom that ban of woman's infamy had been pas
sed, which renders its object ga thing apart from
human ties" She was the child parents. who.
though in humble life, had borne an rreproacl-
able name. They were uniformed indeed. with
out words or power to reclaim the lost one. and
perhaps they had spared those counsels. that
might have prevented her early wanderings: but
the reproach Of theirchild fell upon them, never
theless, with a bitterness, which they who have
wept only over the graves of their children NAV
not estimate. There was not balm for a wound
like this, and when they saw her, as step by step
she swerved from the path of virtue, become an
object ofavoidance, when their familiar neighbors.
they among whom their child had been reared.
turned from her as from one unknown.-they
felt that they could not endure it, and they babe
her leave the patcrnal forever that they might
be free from the sight of her who had made them
the mark the scorncd. The culprit went forth,
and with an aycried and conscious eve, sought
out once more the dwelling, where in bv-eone
days-for she had been a child of fair and unwon-
ted promise-shc was used to be received with
the fondest welcome-N asked for employment.
1t was briefly but coldly denied her, and one af-
ter another turned from her, as from one with
whom they held not even humanity in common.
She stood amid bright and glorious world.
whose creatures were united BY love and friend
ship and confidence and trnst-but she was A.
lone-a thing, scared and blighted, who had no
part in all that gave beauty aud gadness and holi-
ness to the wide earth? Jane Robson at last
TUNED away from the quiet scenes Of her child
hood, and bent her steps towards the nearest
town. 1t was not many miles distant, and there
yes, the haunts Of vice would at least afford
her reception As she walked on with a stem.
that had lost its wonted elasticity, she was met
by an elderly quakeress, who looked at her with
IN expression Of panied recognition She had
often met Jane, whose residence was ina neigh