NEW YORK.
EDGAR:--
After the fatigues of the day, I returned home. As I entered, my wifewas breaking the seal of a letter; but, on seeing me, she forbore, andpresented the letter to me.
"I saw," said she, "by the superscription of this letter, who the writerwas. So, agreeably to your wishes, I proceeded to open it; but you havecome just time enough to save me the trouble."
This letter was from you. It contained information relative to Clithero.See how imminent a chance it was that saved my wife from a knowledge ofits contents! It required all my efforts to hide my perturbation fromher and excuse myself from showing her the letter.
I know better than you the character of Clithero, and the consequencesof a meeting between him and my wife. You may be sure that I would exertmyself to prevent a meeting.
The method for me to pursue was extremely obvious. Clithero is a madman,whose liberty is dangerous, and who requires to be fettered andimprisoned as the most atrocious criminal.
I hastened to the chief-magistrate, who is my friend, and, by properrepresentations, obtained from him authority to seize Clithero whereverI should meet with him, and effectually debar him from the perpetrationof new mischiefs.
New York does not afford a place of confinement for lunatics as suitableto his case as Pennsylvania. I was desirous of placing him as far aspossible from the place of my wife's residence. Fortunately, there was apacket for Philadelphia on the point of setting out on her voyage. Thisvessel I engaged to wait a day or two, for the purpose of conveying himto Pennsylvania Hospital. Meanwhile, proper persons were stationed atPowles Hook, and at the quays where the various stage-boats from Jerseyarrive.
These precautions were effectual. Not many hours after the receipt ofyour intelligence, this unfortunate man applied for a passage atElizabethtown, was seized the moment he set his foot on shore, and wasforthwith conveyed to the packet, which immediately set sail.
I designed that all these proceedings should be concealed from thewomen, but unfortunately neglected to take suitable measures forhindering the letter, which you gave me reason to expect on the ensuingday, from coming into their hands. It was delivered to my wife in myabsence, and opened immediately by her.
You know what is, at present, her personal condition. You know whatstrong reasons I had to prevent any danger or alarm from approachingher. Terror could not assume a shape more ghastly than this. The effectshave been what might have been easily predicted. Her own life has beenimminently endangered, and an untimely birth has blasted my fondesthope. Her infant, with whose future existence so many pleasures wereentwined, is dead.
I assure you, Edgar, my philosophy has not found itself lightsome andactive under this burden. I find it hard to forbear commenting on yourrashness in no very mild terms. You acted in direct opposition to mycounsel and to the plainest dictates of propriety. Be more circumspectand more obsequious for the future.
You knew the liberty that would be taken of opening my letters; you knewof my absence from home during the greatest part of the day, and thelikelihood, therefore, that your letters would fall into my wife's handsbefore they came into mine. These considerations should have promptedyou to send them under cover to Whitworth or Harvey, with directions togive them immediately to me.
Some of these events happened in my absence; for I determined toaccompany the packet myself, and see the madman safely delivered to thecare of the hospital.
I will not torture your sensibility by recounting the incidents of hisarrest and detention. You will imagine that his strong but pervertedreason exclaimed loudly against the injustice of his treatment. It waseasy for him to out-reason his antagonist, and nothing but force couldsubdue his opposition. On me devolved the province of his jailer and histyrant,--a province which required a heart more steeled by spectacles ofsuffering and the exercise of cruelty than mine had been.
Scarcely had we passed the Narrows, when the lunatic, being suffered towalk the deck, (as no apprehensions were entertained of his escape insuch circumstances,) threw himself overboard, with a seeming intentionto gain the shore. The boat was immediately manned; the fugitive waspursued; but, at the moment when his flight was overtaken, he forcedhimself beneath the surface, and was seen no more.
With the life of this wretch, let our regrets and our forebodingsterminate. He has saved himself from evils for which no time would haveprovided a remedy, from lingering for years in the noisome dungeon of ahospital. Having no reason to continue my voyage, I put myself on boarda coasting-sloop, and regained this city in a few hours. I persuademyself that my wife's indisposition will be temporary. It was impossibleto hide from her the death of Clithero, and its circumstances. May thisbe the last arrow in the quiver of adversity! Farewell.
Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker Page 30