Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-05-01
THROCKMORTON's GHOST.
How a Woman Got Even With
Her Destroyer.
For Twenty Years His. Waking and
sleeping ftoEsht-Eo Strategy Cum
ming Enough TO Shake OF the Sc
Ieuf Relentless Sneefre
From the Chicago Tribune

sleeping fhoight-No strategy Cum
ming Enough TO Shake or the ST.
lent, Relentless Spectre.
From the Chicago Tribune.
The trial of Miss Eliza Goodwin, who was
recently brought before the courts In Lou
| isyille vipon a writ De tI1sntico in1uireNdo,
and discharged, developed train of cir
cufiistances which not only Guido the crea-
ations of the novelist and romancer, but
can only find their parallel in the gloomy
and grim Nemesis of Grecian mythology.
Miss Eliza Goodwin is a member of a re
specialize family, q well-eiueated and cul-
tivafed lady, who, when mere SCHOOLGIRL,
twentY-fQpr. sesrs aso, nisde the acluaint-
ance OF Maj. John Throckmorton, an ac-
complished and fascinating man of the
world, then twenty years her senior. His
influence upon her amounted to an
infatuation which she could mt
control. She was e8nrding and III
experienced, like most schoolgirls
of idealistic tendencies, and she
very soon engaged herself in marriage to
him. When he had secured this advantage,
he ruined and then abandoned her, but the
shadow Of the darkness into Which she fell
envcloped him also, and l. has never left
him or her, and never will, although he is
growing gray with years and passing tie
years Of passion, and she is faded, weary
woman, out of whose life hope has disap-
peared, and for whom remains only the
passive obedience tofate. When. she found
herself abandoped she did hot throw her.
self into this Sums. She did not break
under the calamity which wrecks so many
lives. She did not hurry herself out of the
world. The disaster revealed her to her
self, and all the aimless and restless ele-
ments of her life crystalised into one settled
purpose which, FOR over twenty years, has
absorbed every other purpose, hope, thought
and energy of her being. She calmly and
firmly came to her resolve after long medi-
tation. She could not marry any other man,
for that would be an irreparable injury.
She had no desire to injure her betrayer,
as she stated during the trial. She left
his heath and his life in the hands
Of God" She did not stop to
weigh any effect her purpose might have
upon her relatives or society at large IN
the scope of her purpcse there We're but two
beings in the world-her betrayer and her
sell. For two long years she sought by
every means in her power to win him back
to her; but when she found this was fruit
less, when she found that he had forever
abandoned her, ard that no influence of
hers could ever reach him, then she deter
mined that, as he had wrecked her life, she
would wreck his; that as he, under promise
of marriage, had clOuded her whole life
with unhappiness, he should help he- to
bear it, by suffering In kind, and that the
memory of the ruin he had made should
ever be fresh and constant. She has thus
far fulfilled her purpose. For twenty years
she has been his waking and sleeping
thought, and no effort Of his has been pow
erful enough, no strategy cunning enough,
to shake off the silent, relentless spectre
which has followed him With reproachful
eye and iron purpose, as calm,
and rigid, aud silent as though she were
the very embodiment ofFate. Wherever he
went in the city of Louisville, she was
few PAGES behind him. Did he 60 to call
upon a friend, he knew she would be upon
the opposite side of the street when he
came out. He went to New Orleans, and
when he arrived there she was there also.
He went to New York, but in the thou
sands of strange faces which passed him in
the busy streets, there was one familiar face
always near him. His ownshadow did not
follow him more surely or persistently than
she followed him. 1t was all the same in
summer or winter, in spring or fall, in
storm or shine, by day or by night. Thus
the years went on. She never moleSted
him. She never personally interfered with
his business or his eniOyments. She never
spoke to himunless he spoke to her, and then
the burden of her communication was only
that it was her fate to follow him through
life, and his fate to be followed. In
all these years Maj. ThrOckmortOn has
grown gray in the shadow, and Throck-
mOrtOn's ghost has grown faded and pale
and weary with her restless wandering.
At last he could endure her calmness, her
silence, and her constant presence no Ion
ger, and he brought her before the courts
upon the writ TO which we have alluded
and sought to establish the fact that she
was insane, her insanity taking the form
of a monOmania. But this was her oppor-
tunity as well as his. Ii was the oppOrtu-
nifty she had long wished, and for the first
time she had the chance to tell her story
before public tribunal. There were doc
tors and experts in attendance, who mar
rowly watched her as she narrated this
twenty years story, but the found no
traces Of insanity in il. There was but
one expert who deemed her monomaniac,
asylum for thirty years, and acknowledged
that he expected liberal fee for his opin-
ion. He had concluded, on general prin-
cipleS, that Miss Goodwin was insane be-
cause she was different from other women,
and other women similarly situated
would have grieved until they
died, or recklessly gone to the bad
a ruling which would cOnsign a great many
very sane people, who happen to be infexi-
bic IN purpose, to the insane asylum. The
jury did not accept the opinion of the ex-
pert, but acquitted her and left her free to
do as she pleased. During the trial she did
not follow Throckmorton, and there will
be some curiosity as to her future course.
This episode may divert her from her pur-
pose, since she has had the opportunity to
tell her story in the most public manner
and to vindicate her course. Whether she
abandOns or continues to follow him, mat
tiers little now. In all these twenty years
her victim has had opportunity TO make
amends for the great wrong which he in
flicted upon his victim, and there are very
few people who will not look upon it as an
instance of poetical retribution in a case in
which the law affords no adequate remedy
and social forms are more liable to favor
the stronger than the weaker party. The
Nemesian idea is completely exemplifed.
He ruined her life. She ruined his He
destroyed her happiness. She destroyed
his. The two are even.
ssBARKIS Is WIILIN'.''
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The fact that it is thought possible at
Washington to pass a law which will