Louisiana capitolian. (Baton Rouge, La.) 1879-1881, 1881-01-08

L =
read by the young collegian will per
haps have considerable effect upon hit
future life. We translate portion o.
this eloquent appeal to the young heart
hard only because it has as yet never
suffered. The original essay is u mas
terpiece.
...... $50 this young lad comes to tel
us as if it was the most natural thing in
the world that his mother was never d
mother to him, and that she abandoned
him when he was only u four-Inonth-old
Does he know how and why ! And il
he knows it, why does not he, as hel
son, school himself to forget it! And il
it was only for the sake of those foul
months, young man, you would not have
the right to strike that woman who SUI,
freed in order to bring you into the
world, and who bent over your cradle
no, not even though she had cared fol
you only day, only one hour.
Poor child! hardly feel the cour-
age to bring any accusation against you
when | contrast your sacrilegious ex.
pressions of hate with the artlessness OF
your boyist avewals. So it is really
true that this poor woman abandoned
you SO heartlessly2 Yet, ifmy memory
does not fail me-and that will he prov.
EN- before long in full light OF judiciary
debate-your mother, on the contra
| nv made use of an old generals iniin.
ence in order that she might be able to
see you oftener than the law permitted.
No. The Baroness de Kaulla was not
the heartless mother you speak of, how
ever guilty she may otherwise have
been; even your own letter shows that
on finding herself beside yon again, and
overcome by all a mothers tenderness,
she confessed to you-you, a child of
eleven years-the situation in which she
was placed: she threw all the blame of
the past upon your father, and perhaps
she may have been wrong, But in this
matter even II, a stranger--l, who ain
not obliged by the voice of blood, by So
cial requirements, by law or by public
morality, to excuse the Baroness de
Kaulla-I show myself more clement to
her than you, her son, and | can well
excuse her for having disturbed your
boyish years by condolences which size
ought to have spared you.
"You were only eleven years old when
this woman came to see you and said !:
4 am your mother the fault was on
your fathers side You could not then
understand those words, nor even to-
day, in spite of your seventeen years,
have You the right to hitter q single word
in regard to the affairs of the human
heart. Otherwise | would tell You,
young man, that u son ought to pardon
his mother for any accusation she might
make against the most venerated of
fathers for it is in human nature, and
especially in the nature of the woman
mother, who is the most perfect incana-
ton of that nature, to strive to be with
her children at any cost and by any
means, even the most blameworthy, and
to endeavor TO win their love again
even though by means of % falseh0od.
NO, young man, you could not under
stand that at eleven years of age, nor
can you understand it sufficiently to.
day. There are truths which yon can
not find in dictionaries, truths which
are only learned by a long life of expe-
rience and reflection, and which teach
men that clemency is the greatest of
virtues, perhaps the only one which
elevates them above the apes from which
some claim that you and are descend
ed. Go back to the Lycee Fontanes,
young scholar, and repress in the depths
of yonr young heart that abominable
hatred of which your letter bears pain
FIJI imprint. You cannot deceive old
fools like us with grand phrases. Shall
tell you why yon wrote that letter
You did not write it only through aiec-
ton for your father, which would con-
slider a glory for you; but rather be-
cause the reports circulated about yonF
parents and the publicity given to their
discords had brought the blush to your
young forehead. You imagined that
| the public who were interested in the
story of your cradle and your childhood
were anxious to hear your opinion :and
that it behOve you TO publicly cast of
this mother, weighed down with dis,
| honorable accusations. You imagined
and, believe me, very wrongfully-
that stain had been cast upon your
young honor, and that you could wash