ed. Even consciousness fled for once and left me to the
luxury of grief. At length the worthy people came to me and took me
from the room. I asked many questions, to which they could give me but
unsatisfactory replies. They knew little of Eudora's history. She had
come directly from my house to this place, and had been remarkable for
her acts of untiring benevolence in ministering to the sick and the
destitute. She lost her life from too great exposure in watching at
the bedside of a miserable woman whom all the world seemed to have
abandoned, and who died of some malignant fever. I will not attempt to
describe what I passed through. I became sincerely repentant. I saw my
character in its true light. I prayed that my sins might be forgiven.

The place where Eudora died was not far from the spot where we first
met. I begged the good priest who acted as her confessor to consecrate
a little chapel which I should build there, and permit me to place my
wife's remains in it. He consented. I caused the image of the Christ
which she always wore to be carefully copied in marble and placed before
the chapel, and I spent several weeks there, deploring my sins and
seeking for light from above.

It was not to be that I should thus easily settle the error of a
lifetime. After a while I felt the desperate gnawing of the senses
inexpressible and irresistible. Satan had come again, and I was called
for. And I went! There was no escape,--there _is_ no escape! Once more
I plunged into riotous folly and excess, giving full license to my
unbridled appetites,--but conscious always. When the fever subsided,
I was once more repentant and sorrowful, and I came here,--only to be
carried off again to renew the same wretched scenes. I know not how long
this will last. I know not if Heaven or Hell will triumph. Yet, strange
as you may think it, I believe I am not so bad a man as when I was a
professor in ----, slowly destroying my lovely wife. From each paroxysm
I fancy I escape somewhat stronger, somewhat more manly than before. I
think, too, my periods of excess are shorter, and of repentance longer;
and I sometimes entertain a hope that folly and madness will in me, as
in the young, become exhausted, and that beyond still lies the goal of
peace and wisdom.

Such as it is, strange as it may seem, you have from me a truthful
history. Would that the world might hear it and be wiser! Mark me! Let
not those who undertake to train the young attempt