ile my being is prolonged, I must feel the disgraceful and torturing
effects of my guilt in seducing her. How madly have I deprived her of
happiness, of reputation, of life! Her friends, could they know the
pangs of contrition and the horrors of conscience which attend me,
would be amply revenged.

It is said she quitted the world with composure and peace. Well she
might. She had not that insupportable weight of iniquity which sinks me
to despair. She found consolation in that religion which I have
ridiculed as priestcraft and hypocrisy. But, whether it be true or
false, would to Heaven I could now enjoy the comforts which its votaries
evidently feel.

My wife has left me. As we lived together without love, we parted
without regret.

Now, Charles, I am to bid you a long, perhaps a last farewell. Where I
shall roam in future, I neither know nor care. I shall go where the name
of Sanford is unknown, and his person and sorrows unnoticed.

In this happy clime I have nothing to induce my stay. I have not money
to support me with my profligate companions, nor have I any relish, at
present, for their society. By the virtuous part of the community I am
shunned as the pest and bane of social enjoyment. In short, I am
debarred from every kind of happiness. If I look back, I recoil with
horror from the black catalogue of vices which have stained my past
life, and reduced me to indigence and contempt. If I look forward, I
shudder at the prospects which my foreboding mind presents to view both
in this and a coming world. This is a deplorable, yet just, picture of
myself. How totally the reverse of what I once appeared!

Let it warn you, my friend, to shun the dangerous paths which I have
trodden, that you may never be involved in the hopeless ignominy and
wretchedness of

PETER SANFORD.

LETTER LXXIII.

TO MISS JULIA GRANBY.

BOSTON.

A melancholy tale have you unfolded, my dear Julia; and tragic indeed is
the concluding scene.

Is she then gone? gone in this most distressing manner? Have I lost my
once-loved friend? lost her in a way which I could never have conceived
to be possible?

Our days of childhood were spent together in the same pursuits, in the
same amusements. Our riper years increased our mutual affection, and
maturer judgment most firmly cemented our friendship. Can I, then,
calmly resign her to so severe a fate? Can I bear the idea of her being
lost to honor, to fame, and to life? No; she shall stil