The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-06-15
GEORGE DeMAsTERs.

been written by man who entered
prison an uneducated youth.
Missouri PENITENTIARY, I
June 3rd, 1889. )
Hon. A. A. Lesueur, Secretary o
State: My sister has jnst sent me youf
paper of April 27, containing my letter
and the comments thereon | had no
idea of its ever finding its way into
print, for | have no youthful ambition
to satiate by seeing myself in "cold
type" have survived this mandlin
desire. Nor have | much to say OF
what was said of me, for taken as a
whole il is as favorable as | cOnld ex
pect, and much more so than ! have
received at the hands of any publicist
for nearly fourteen years.
| know that | would not win prize
AZ beauty show, neither would i
make an admirable Adonis, an Apollo
BelvedeTe or Beau Brunmel. am
not SO handsome, or so desperately H.
love with myself as to write love let
ters to myself, "for | have not eyes
that women love-" ByrOnic brow, thu
lips of Hebe, the form and insuffici-
ent beauty of an Ariadne, hair fine
spun as silk, with close knit cnrls,
| tongue tipped with the honey of lily
mettus the grace of girl just swimming
| into her teeus, the eloquence of a con
fidence man or the courage OF gladi
ator, nor have | "robust physique
or "ferocious aspect of countenance,
| without have changed since l donned
, the stripes of the hvena. But, perhap'
| this 'keenest cup of ALL wac little bit
| of innocent fieL thrown in to fill ont tht
sketch Je suis dams in SOupe; mus Je
| ne Serai lG pdspaur fOujaurs, s. u ptdH
dieW pour me pour me tauer UtOre.
1t Is something that l can't under.
stand why novelists always paint their
villains with some hyper-phy hysical OF
physiological defect, for defect it must
| certainly be, and will be readily recog
nized by any one who is cOnversan
with the Pariahs or villains OF the hu
man family. have read them all, OF
| anv note, from Baccacio to Mrs. Ward:
they all fall into this error. The same
can be said of historians, from Strabo
to J. Blaine. And even the great
Shakespeare falsifies history to the
exigencies of his characters. He
has drawn Richard the Third as
hunchbacked, bowlegged, little, insig
nificant piece of humanity, whereas we
know that he was physically as perfect
as 'tother Richmond.
AS the princes of history, poetry.
| and fiction have erred in this way
| we might be sure that others would fol
| low and continue TO follow in
in their wake. But have no grounds
to complain, if | wished to do so.
which do not, of what any one says
of me. | am like Diogenes and his
tuba free target for the Pascals, Ju
venals and Juniuses to discharge their
moral irony upon. Bot let them flick
er. Will get out of my tub some OF
these days also. Let them dilscerate
me to their hearts content. My sau-
rian skin is impervious to it all. Ii j.
too true that nave fallen to the depths
of hades 1t is also true that am a
Pariah, but not a Hindoo Pariah. /
am nineteenth or Christian Pariah
There is quite difference between
them as you know. Je suis d unae fam
lille FrancaiSe dusSe Gncienne que ceih
de Henri de NaUa,re. My grandfather
came to Lexington in 1917. | wa,
born in Lafayette in 1858, and lived
there till Jennison and his red legged
scoundrels applied the torch to oul
home, and left my father corpse by
its smoking ruins.
God knows plead no extenuating cir.
cumstances for the faults have com.
mitted, but | was not sent here in IA
as implied in your paper, for robbery,
but for forgery, trumped up against
me by the guilty parties, Gilkerson aud
Stone, that they might evade the peni
tentiary themselves. But it soon CANT
out that If | was not innocent of the
charge, was not the only guilty party
because soon afterward they defraudet
their creditors and departed for part;
unknown. | was previously wronget
but ] did not have sense enough Il
know that two wrongs do not make
right, lesson that dearly learned
But | was, and have been since, like
ship-wrecked sailor on some lionel
island, who looked in vain for his gal
, liant ship, and sees but the gaping
mouth, the glaring eyes of the hideou
sea serpent. l feel | hear the surging
seething waters of Styx sweep ovel
me, around me. All around is inky
blackness, from zenith to horizon, from
horizon to zenith. all is Tantaluian des
pair. No scintillating star of hop
pierces through the somber gloom wit
= its dim distant light to bid hope tha
"every cloud has its silver lining" N
Lethean waters soothe into glad tor
' gettulness my aching heart or throt
;. bing brain. No Elysian Fields ar
! seen beyond. All Is but a sandy desel
u as far as the eye can reach, swept by
-, perennial symoon, with no frIendl
- | 10 lnlinhf ha IN
y deadly thirst, to still the cry to allev
= ate the pains of hunger.
The physical pain endured here b
!, u the thinking man, by the man who ca
measure the Tarpein heights fror
which he has been hurled into verits
!, BILE Gehenna, without the waters of Kit
y ron to carry him away, with no escape
% not even in death, to such a man th
Z physical suffering compared to the mel
tai anguish is as but drop of water
u the ocean, a grain of sand weighed
. the balance against the universe, bt
u as single wave in the ocean storl
. that wrecks the gallant ship.
y Ii could prevent myself from thinl
% ing, if could pass the days and nigh
- merely as an autumatOn, rs do soM
= men, without viewing the past, withol
a thought or care for the future th
u looms up in the distance without rs
'ts of sunshine to light its somber gloom,
u u would be glad; but cannot do it.
Is is like Banquo's ghost, it will not dow
J, Man has subdued or solved all or a
u most ali the phenomena of nature, all
!, makes them obey his will, but he Cal
- not snbdue the subtle thought or sol,
- it. tried but failed. l have read a
- Is the history, poetry, fiction, geolog,
., biography, religion, essays, scienc
, mental, moral, physical aud natural,
.. .. the prison library, and all the books
1t was able to buy, and finally turne
Z to the study of philology and lsngu
u, ges for relief. l have often thong
a. a. that Dante must have "done time"
ls be able to construct the machinery
~ his inferno. But, perhaps. he was lii
u Ovid-Out of Florence, out of Il
ls world.
II have seen 1850 mon come he
u since came, and almost that many
forth to breathe the air of freedo
u again. | am the oldest white man
as point of service now in prison, the
20 are three negroes ahead of me.
would be entitled to holiday pardC
the Fourth of July if had had sen