In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER XXIV Tom Gordon 's Plans TOM GORDON, in the mean while, had commenced ruling his paternal plantation in a manner very different from the former indulgent system. His habits of reckless and boundless extravagance,and utter heedlessness, caused his cravings for money to be absolutely insatiable ; and, within legal limits, he had as little care how it was come by, as a highway robber. It is to be remarked that Tom Gordon was a worse slaveholder and master from the very facts of certain desirable qualities in his mental constitution; for, as good wine makes the strongest vinegar, so fine natures perverted make the worse vice. Tom had naturally a perfectly clear, perceptive mind, and an energetic , prompt temperament. It was impossible for him, as many do, to sophisticate and delude himself with false views. He marched up to evil boldly, and with his eyes open. He had very little regard for public opinion, particularly the opinion of conscientious and scrupulous people. So he carried his purposes, it was very little matter to him what any one thought of them or him; they might complain till they were tired. After Clayton had left the place, he often pondered the dying words of Nina, "that he should care for her people; that he should tell Tom to be kind to them." There was such an impassable gulf between the two characters, that it seemed impossible that any peaceable communication should pass between them. Clayton thought within himself that it was utterly hopeless to expect any good arising from the sending of Nina's last message. But the subject haunted him. Had he any right to withhold it? Was it not his duty to try every measure, however apparently hopeless? Under the impulse of this feeling, he one day sat down and wrote to Tom Gordon an account, worded with the utmost simplicity, of the last hours of his sister's life, hoping that he might read it, and thus, if nothing more, his own conscience be absolved. Death and the grave, it is true, have sacred prerogatives, and it is 471 472 DRED often in their power to awaken a love which did not appear in life. There are few so hard as not to be touched by the record of the last hours of those with whom they have stood in intimate relations. A great moralist says, "There are few things not purely evil of which we can say, without emotion, this is the last." The letter was brought to Tom Gordon one evening when, for a wonder, he was by himself; his associates being off on an excursion, while he was detained at home by a temporary illness. He read it over, therefore, with some attention. He was of too positive a character , however, too keenly percipient, not to feel immediate pain in view of it. A man of another nature might have melted in tears over it, indulged in the luxury of sentimental grief, and derived some comfort, from the exercise, to go on in ways of sin. Not so with Tom Gordon. He could not afford to indulge in anything that roused his moral nature. He was doing wrong of set purpose, with defiant energy; and his only way of keeping his conscience quiet was to maintain about him such a constant tumult of excitement as should drown reflection. He could not afford a tete-a-tete conversation with his conscience;—having resolved, once for all, to go on in his own wicked way, serving the flesh and the devil, he had to watch against anything that might occasion uncomfortable conflict in his mind. He knew very well, lost man as he was, that there was something sweet and pure, high and noble, against which he was contending; and the letter was only like a torch, which a fair angel might hold up, shining into the filthy lair of a demon. He could not bear the light; and he had no sooner read the note, than he cast it into the fire, and rang violently for a hot brandy-toddy, and a fresh case of cigars. The devil's last, best artifice to rivet the fetters of his captives is the opportunity which these stimulants give them to command insanity at will. Tom Gordon was taken to bed drunk; and, if a sorrowful guardian spirit hovered over him as he read the letter, he did not hear the dejected rustle of its retreating wings. The next...

Share