Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1855-10-04

V
him a crowd of admirers. He was
loved, and he was flattered. Mingling
with the gay and reckless youths. who
in college-life are usually made up OF
the most intellectual, he joined them
in their revels, and, IN an evil hour.
became an initiate at the gaming table,
which was found at that time even in
the Puritan city of -. From that
moment he became a victim. His lib
eral allowance was squandered always
at the hell TO which he had been intro
duced, and after three constant years of
torture, such as only the gamester knows,
he found himself disgraced with debt,
from which he saw no hope of release.
His father had in the meantime died
and he had well nigh exhausted his
poor mothers patience and her purse,
by his frequent demands upon the latter.
During this time his nervous intellect
could not be slumbered, even by the
deadening influence of gaming, and he
became ripe scholar, but misery had
marked him for victim, and already
he began to long for the Lethe of for
getfulness. AT last when in state of
utter desperation, temptation seized him
and one day after nights debauch at
the gaming table, knowing that one Of
the professors had sum of money in
the bank, he procured check, filled it
with the sum of two thousand dollars,
forged the professors signature, and
drew the money. Utterly desperate he
started that night for New York, and
two days after, finding ship to sail for
Callao, he took passage in her, and in
four months found himself in Lima.
For three yesEs and over he was a
Wanderers wanderer through the
cities and wilds Of South America
His nervous brain would never let him
rest, and so he continued to study and
to learn, always having with him one
or more books, from which he acquired
the languages in which he became so
proficient He roamed into the heart
of Peru, lived for months among the
natives on the banks of the wildly flow
ing Amazon, roved over the broad
Pampas, lived the life of an outcast-
but always looking to the Lethe of for
getfulness. At last, his means were
exhausted, and in utter dispair again,
he went on board an American ship at
Valparaiso, and worked his passage
home, hoping that he and his crime
were forgotten, and that yet he might
find his Lethe among his fellow-men,
and intending, if it was life's labor. to
atone as fully as he could for his youths
crime. advertisement had attracted
him to the office of the Morning -,
after he had spent days of hunger and
nights of restlessness and sorrow. In
the humble guise and employment of
reporter, he had hoped to
pass unheeded by the world, and with
a singular lack of prudence, to say the
least, which l afterward often wondered
at, did not even change his name
But some sharp eye had seen him, and
a reward was set upon his head.
This washissad tale. He had told it
to me through tears and sobs, and when
he had concluded, 1 again offered him
words of comfort and Of hope; but they
came too late, fell upon his ear with no
joyful sound. He seized me by the
hand, and saying Goodbye, Ned
God bless you"-rushed from my attic,
while l struggled to detain him. But
he was gone, and l never saw him
more.
A few months afterwards, inspired
with the love of adventure, and the
hope perhaps of military glory, l left
for California-then a new and almost
unknown land. My own wild life. now
in the soldiers tent, or by the bivouac
fire, and by the side of the cold noun
tain streams, searching for the golden
treasures which they bore down with
them, has almost erased from my mem
ory the name even of my poor friend.
In the early part of 1849, however. 1
came to San Francisco, and entering
one day the Office of the Alta California,
picked up copy of the Morning ~
the paper on which c. and had
labored together. l had not seen one
before for over two years, and the sight
of it recalled him to my memory. By
some singular fatality, my eye rested at
once upon the list of deaths. 1t was
headed by the following:
Killed. by whale, in the Sea of Oc-
hotsk, g. A. NJ, on
" son of the late Rev. DR.. NJ
formerly of -.
This was his only epitaph. The
wild, cold waves of the Northern sea were
washing his whitening bones. He had
passed through the cloud which death
hangs over life's pathway. He had
lifted the veil which hides to mortal
eyes that future, '"where the shadows
lie." He had at last been buried in the
Lethe of Forgetfulness, or rather, had
not awakened to that brighter, purer,
happier life, whose earliest dawning,
casting its gentle sunshine on the Past,
gilds its virtues with such a golden
brightness that its errors are not seenl
A POLITE CRIrIc.-A contemporary,
reviewing a young lady's poems, says,
at will afford US pleasure to meet her,
at any future period, when her leisure
may permit"