The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1861-01-03
The Fate Of an infatuated Man.

The Fate Of an infatuated Man.
Some ten years since wealthy mer-
chant of Boston retired to the classic regi-
on of the White mountains, to enjoy, dur
ing his declining years, the quiet he SO
much needed, after having lived two thirds
of century among the busy marts Of a
crowded city, and during which period he
had seldom permitted himself to go on
pleasure excursion beyond the boulevards
of the Athens of America. But having
acquired, not competence merely, but a
fortune that would entitlc him to posi-
ton among millonaires, he hoped to find
that happiness in retirementISineh he
had vaftrly sought amid the noisy rounds
of business and the monotony Of mercan-
tile life.
Nor, judging from the surface, were his
hopes ill-grounded. Having passed his six
ty fifth yearhe was apparently out of the
reach of those youthful follics which so
frequently ruin younger men not protect
ed by active employment. His health
was much better than that of most men
of his age; his conduct had always been
exemplary, and he was not required to
spend the latter half Of his life in atoning
for the frailtics his youth. His wife, to
whom he had been united for more than
forty years, still lived to cheer him, and
his children wereall happily settled around
him. The spot he had chosen for his re-
tirement was peculiarly adapted to crafty
every Legitimate desire. The classic scene
ry, the pellucd lakes and rivers. the noble
forests, combined to crafty the senses.
His home was decorated with everything
beautiful and pleasing that cultivated
fancy could suggest. His grounds and
gardens were such as novelists delight to
describe and artists to paint; in word.
all things around him, both in nature and
art, were all that any rational mind could
desire
But in this paradise, the serpent enter
ed. He who had successfully resisted all
the temptations of the city, who had hap
PLY overcome all the follies of youth, fell
like shattered citadel, when the danger
was apparently past.
1t is unnecessary to relate the manner
in which the temptress wound herself in
the old mans heart, after sixty-eight win
tcrs had passed over him; but, so she did,
and he consented to leave home, friends,
relatives, wife, and fly, with the greater
part of his fortune, to the West. Arriving
in Cincinnati, he and his paramour, a
beautiful girl of-nineteen, took rooms in 4
retired quarter Of tic city, where they
lived, unknown to the world, for about
two years, when the old man, who had
been rendered miserable by his new life,
was made still more wretched by the in
telligcnce of the death Of his deserted,
heart-broken wife. His sorrow. the COM
FUNCTIONS or conscience, lno P4oiiiP'inS
of his better nature, however, were of no
avail to disinthrall him from..th subtitle coil
of the serpent vice that had firmly fixed
his worldly DOOM
His paramour had, up to this time, ap-
parently used every exertion to render
him happy. She was playing for an en-
ormous stake-the old mans fortunc-and
she hoped by kindness to induce him to
settle the greater portion of it upon her.
to the exclusion of his children. Now:
that his wife was no more, she determined
at once, to place herself in a position to
command that which she had hoped to