d interest and the true
perception he manifested in speaking of the portrait rendered him, in
its owner's estimation, worthy to know the story his own intuition had
so nearly divined. The original was Theodosia, the daughter of Aaron
Burr. His affection for her was the redeeming fact of his career and
character. Both were anomalous in our history. In an era remarkable for
patriotic self-sacrifice, he became infamous for treasonable ambition;
among a phalanx of statesmen illustrious for directness and integrity,
he pursued the tortuous path of perfidious intrigue; in a community
where the sanctities of domestic life were unusually revered, he bore
the stigma of unscrupulous libertinism. With the blood of his gallant
adversary and his country's idol on his hands, the penalties of debt and
treason hanging over him, the fertility of an acute intellect wasted on
vain expedients,--an outlaw, an adventurer, a plausible reasoner
with one sex and fascinating betrayer of the other, poor, bereaved,
contemned,--one holy, loyal sentiment lingered in his perverted
soul,--love for the fair, gifted, gentle being who called him father.
The only disinterested sympathy his letters breathe is for her; and the
feeling and sense of duty they manifest offer a remarkable contrast to
the parallel record of a life of unprincipled schemes, misused talents,
and heartless amours. As if to complete the tragic antithesis of
destiny, the beloved and gifted woman who thus shed an angelic ray upon
that dark career was soon after her father's return from Europe lost in
a storm at sea while on her way to visit him, thus meeting a fate which,
even at the distance of time, is remembered with pity. Her wretched
father bore with him, in all his wanderings and through all his
remorseful exile, her picture--emblem of filial love, of all that is
beautiful in the ministry of woman, and all that is terrible in human
fate. At length he lay dangerously ill in a garret. He had parted with
one after another of his articles of raiment, books, and trinkets,
to defray the expenses of a long illness; Theodosia's picture alone
remained; it hung beside him,--the one talisman of irreproachable
memory, of spotless love, and of undying sorrow; he resolved to die with
this sweet relic of the loved and lost in his possession; there his
sacrifices ended. Life seemed slowly ebbing; the underpaid physician
lagged in his visits; the importunate landlord threatened to send this
once d