New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-08-20

a REMARKABLE LETTER.

q
Elsewhere in to-day's paper We publish an
abrdgement Of rather extraordinary letter. II
ia publication made BY Mrs. Quincy, the wife o.
| weIlknown banker and member Of Parliament
Of Great Britain, who eloped last year with her
groom, and, deserving her husband and ehiidreh'
| ran off to the Continent where she now resides.
| The affair created considerable sensational the
time and was more or less talked about on TINS s'de
Of the Atlantic as well as the other. Mrs Gurney and
| her husband were relatiYes-second cousins Both
| belonged to old highly respectable and wealthy
| fap,iliestbe LADY bringing her husband fortune
l az Ave millions Of dollars. Mr. Quincy himself
i 4 WE'LL known banker and member Of the House
| If Commons. II would seem that nothing was
wanting according to the usual standard of happi
ness set mp by the world to complete the felicity
of The couple-and yet, suddenly, during the carly
part of last year. the lady eopes with her servant
and the circumstance fills all Europe with scandal
and comment.
The present publication is an attempt to over
throw and pull down all the established theories OF
social life, and to introduce new creed, based
upon the largest liberty of individual passion. 1t
is in short labored attempt to prove that illicit
love is something which cannot be restrained, and
ought not to be- if it could Il is free-loye mani
festo in its fullest sense-such a one as has, no
doubt given the greatest satisfaction and delight TO
our North American freeovers, socialists, fourier
ties, amalgamationists and women's-rights women
of the New England States.
The doctrines and ideas which this letter incui-
cate become only the more dangerous from the
eloquent and passionate language in which they
are clothed. Not Bulwer, in his earlier romances,
nor George Sand, nor Lord Byron himself, ever
dressed up unlawful love in such shining garb, or
put forth more insidiously all the apologies which
human ingenuity can invent for this nfraction offs
great social law. But, beneath it all, there is evil
IDENTIFY conviction that the defense will not stand
the test. Innocence, indeed never feels the neees
sity of justification. It is the consciousness of
guilt which troubles the mind, from which relief is
sought by voluntary and unsolicited defense against
the crushing weight of public opinion.
There have been, ia all ages of the world and
among all natonalities, abundant instances Of con
juga inidelity. Nor has any class of society been
free from it. Butt has never been the case until
Of late years that any formal and serious attempt
has been made to justify such things and to revo-
lutionize public opinion this subject, sanctioned
as it is by an imperative rule of divine law. few
years ago party of Free Lovers and Fonrierites
established phalanstery near New York, and
| there were not wanting men. OF some education
and social distinction, who looked with favor upon
the experiment and defended it in the press. But
the whole concern, naturally enough, hickered ont
after few months trial, and all subsequent enter
prises Ct the kind nave been carried On by indi-
Yduais instead Of communities, We believe, also,
there Foarierite establishment in the Northern
part Of Ohio region fruitful of all the scandalous
political and social ahsurdities and isms Of the
nineteenth century.
All our modern, subnated, false ideas Of 6 free
dom, 2 taking their origin in France half century
ago, find the best field for development under the
liberal Democratic institutions of the United States.
In Enra,,a f etran ar,, If fsx-a-nr,ant Y.,e,-,,tr