To do this, there was but one process. That was flight. I must
leave this city--this country. By doing so, I remove my wife from
temptation, remove the temptation from the unhappy young man whom
it is destroying; and thus, though by a sacrifice of my own comforts
and interests, repay the debt of gratitude to my benefactor in the
only effective manner. It called for no small exercise of moral
courage and forbearance--no small benevolence--to come to this
conclusion. It must be understood that my professional business was
becoming particularly profitable. I was rising in my profession.
My clients daily increased in number; my acquaintance daily increased
in value. Besides, I loved my birthplace--thrice-hallowed--the only
region in my eyes-"The spot most worthy loving Of all beneath the sky."
But the sacrifice was to be made; and my imagination immediately
grew active for my compensation, by describing a woodland home--a
spot, remote from the crowd, where I should carry my household gods,
and set them up for my exclusive and uninvaded worship. The whole
world-wide West was open to me. A virgin land, rich in natural
wealth and splendor, it held forth the prospect of a fair field
and no favor to every newcomer. There it is not possible to keep
in thraldom the fear less heart and the active intellect. There,
no petty circle of society can fetter the energies or enfeeble
the endeavors. No mocking, stale conventionalities can usurp the
place of natural laws, and put genius and talent into the accursed
strait-jacket of routine! Thither will I go. I remembered the late
conference with my friend Kingsley, and the whole course of my
reasoning on the subject of my removal was despatched in half an
hour. "I will go to Alabama."
Such was my resolution. I was the man to make sudden resolutions.
This, however, reasoned upon with the utmost circumspection, seemed
the very best that I could make. My wife, yet pure, was rescued
from the danger that threatened her; I was saved the necessity of
taking a life so dear to my benefactor; and the unhappy young man
himself--the victim to a blind passion--having no longer in his sight
the temptation which misled him, would be left free to return to
better thoughts, and the accustomed habits of business and society.
I had concluded upon my course in the brief interval which followed
my interview with William Edgerton and my return home.
The next day I saw his father. I communicated the assurance of
the son, and renewed my own, that neither drunkenness nor gaming
was a vice. What it was that afflicted him I did not pretend to
know, but I ascribed it to want of employment; a morbid, unenergetic
temperament; the fact that he was independent, and had no rough
necessities to make him estimate the true nature and the objects
of life; and, at the close, quietly suggested that possibly there
was some affair of the heart which contributed also to his suffering.
I did not deny that his looks were wretched, but I stoutly assured
the old man that his parental fears exaggerated their wretchedness.
We had much other talk on the subject. When we were about to separate
for the day, I declared my own determination in this manner:-"I have just decided on a step, Mr. Edgerton, which perhaps will
somewhat contribute to the improvement of your son, by imposing some
additional tasks upon him. I am about to emigrate for the southwest."