The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-05-14
The Shadow Of n Great Sin.

The trial of Miss Eliza Goodwin, who was
recently brought before the courts in Louis
Vile upon a writ de Iunatico inquirendo, and
discharged, developed a train of circumstances
which not only outdo the creations of the nov
elist and romancer, but can only find their
parallel in the gloomy and grim Nemesis of
Grecian mythology. Miss Eliza Goodwin isSa
member of respectable family, a well-educa-
ted and cultivated lady, who, when mere
school girl, twentyfour years ago, made the
acquaintance of Major John Throckmorton,
an accomplished and fascinating man of the
world, then twenty years her senior: His IN
fuence upon her amounted to an lntatuatlon
which she could not control. She was confid-
ing and inexperienced, like most schoolgirls
of idealistic tendencies, and she very soon en-
had secured this advantage, he ruined and
then abandoned her, but the shadow of the
darkness into which she fell enveloped him also,
and it has never left him or her, and never
will, although he is growing gray with years
and passing the years of passion, and she is
faded, weary woman, out of whose life hope
has disappeared, and for whom remains only
the passive obedience to fate When she found
herself abandoned she did not throw herself
into the slums. She did not break under the
calamity which wrecks so many lives. She
did not hurry herself out ofthe world. The dis
aster revealed her to herself, and all the aim
less and restless elements of her life crystalized
into one settled purpose, which, for over twen-
ty years, has absorbed every other purpose,
hope, thought, and energy of her being. She
calmly and firmly came to her resolve after
long meditation She could not marry any
other man, for that would be an irreparable
injury. She had no desire to injure her be-
trayer, as she stated during the trial. "She
left his health 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 purpose
there were but two beings in the world-her
betrayer and herself For two long years she
sought by every means in her power to win
him back to her; but when she found this was
fruitless, when she found that he had forever
abandoned her, and that no influence of hers
could ever reach him, then she determined
that, as he had wrecked her life, she would
wreck his that as he, under promise OF mar
riage, had clouded her whole life with unhap-
piness, he should help her 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
powerful enough, no strategy cunning enough,
has followed him with rcproachful eye and
iron purpose, as calm, and rigid and silent as
though she were the very embodiment of Fate.
Wherever lie went in the city of Louisville she
was a few PAGES behind him. Did he go to
call upon friend, he knew she would be upon
the opposite side Of the street when he came
out. lie went to New Orleans, and when he
arrived in that city she was there also. lie
went to New York, but in the thousands OF
strange faces which passed him in the busy
streets, there was one familiar face always near
him. His own shadow did not follow him
more surely and persistently than she followed
him. 1t WAS all the same III Summer or Wln-
ter, in Spring or Fall, in storm or shine, by
day or by night Thus the years went on.
She never molcstcd him. She never personally
interfered with his business or his cnjoymcnts.
She never spoke to him unless 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 Mai. Throckmorton has grown
gray in the shadow, and Thockmorton'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 longer, and he brought her before
the courts upon the writ to which we have al
luded, and sought to establish the fact that she
was insane, her insanity taking the form of a
But this was her opportunity as
we'll as his. 1t was the opportunity she had
long wished, and for the first time she had the
chance to tell her story before public trlbu-
nal
There were doctors and experts in attend
ance who narrowly watched her as she narra-
ted this twenty years story, but they found no
traces of insanity in it. There was but one
expert who deemed her monomaniac, and he
has been connected with an insane asylum for
thirty years. and acknowledged that he expect
ed liberal fee for his opinion. He had con-
cludcd, on general principles that Miss God
win was insane because she was different from
other women, and other women similarly stu
ated 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 infexible in purpose, to the
insane asylum. The jury did not accept the
opinion of the expert, 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 divest her from her pur-
pose, since she has had Inc opportunity 10 Cell
her story in the most public manner and to
her course. Whether she abandons
or continues to follow him, matters little now:
In all these twenty years her victim has had
opportunity to make amends for the great
wrong which he inflicted upon his victim, and
there are very few people who will not look
in 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 exemplified. He
ruined her life. She ruined his. He de-
stroyed her happiness. She destroyed his
The two are even- Chicago Tribune.
A NEwsrArER-The newspaper is the chron-
icle of civilization-the common reservoir into
which every stream pours its living waters, and
at which every man may come and drink. It's
Il, To re ino1