Chapter XVIII: Part 18

As mistress of Richmond Hill, Theodosia entertained distinguished company. Hamilton was her father's occasional guest. Burr preferred the society of educated Frenchmen and Frenchwomen to any other, and he entertained many distinguished exiles of the French Revolution. Talleyrand, Volney, Jerome Bonaparte, and Louis Philippe were among his guests. Colonel Stone mentions, in his Life of Brant, that Theodosia, in her fourteenth year, in the absence of her father, gave a dinner to that chieftain of the forest, which was attended by the Bishop of New York, Dr. Hosack, Volney, and several other guests of distinction, who greatly enjoyed the occasion. Burr was gratified to hear with how much grace and good-nature his daughter acquitted herself in the entertainment of her company. The chief himself was exceedingly delighted, and spoke of the dinner with great animation many years after.

We have one pleasant glimpse of Theodosia in these happy years, in a trifling anecdote preserved by the biographer of Edward Livingston, during whose mayoralty the present City Hall was begun. The mayor had the pleasure, one bright day, of escorting the young lady on board a French frigate lying in the harbor. "You must bring none of your sparks on board, Theodosia," exclaimed the pun-loving magistrate; "for they have a magazine here, and we shall all be blown up." Oblivion here drops the curtain upon the gay party and the brilliant scene.

A suitor appeared for the hand of this fair and accomplished girl. It was Joseph Alston of South Carolina, a gentleman of twenty-two, possessor of large estates in rice plantations and slaves, and a man of much spirit and talent. He valued his estates at two hundred thousand pounds sterling. Their courtship was not a long one; for though she, as became her sex, checked the impetuosity of his advances and argued for delay, she was easily convinced by the reasons which he adduced for haste. She reminded him that Aristotle was of opinion that a man should not marry till he was thirty-six. "A fig for Aristotle," he replied; "let us regard the _ipse dixit_ of no man. It is only want of fortune or want of discretion," he continued, "that could justify such a postponement of married joys. But suppose," he added,

"(_merely for instance_,) a young man nearly two-and-twenty,
already of the _greatest_ discretion, with an ample fortune,
were to be passionately in love with a young lady almost
eighteen, equally discreet with himself, and who had a
'sincere friendship' for him, do you think it would be
necessary to make him wait till thirty? particularly where
the friends on both sides were pleased with the match."

She told him, also, that some of her friends who had visited Charleston had described it as a city where the yellow-fever and the "yells of whipped negroes, which assail your ears from every house," and the extreme heat, rendered life a mere purgatory. She had heard, too, that in South Carolina the men were absorbed in hunting, gaming, and racing; while the women, robbed of their society, had no pleasures but to come together in large parties, sip tea, and look prim. The ardent swain eloquently defended his native State:--

"What!" he exclaimed,

"is Charleston, the most delightfully situated city in
America, which, entirely open to the ocean, twice in every
twenty-four hours is cooled by the refreshing sea-breeze,
the Montpelier of the South, which annually affords an
asylum to the planter and the West Indian from every
disease, accused of heat and unhealthiness? But this is not
all, unfortunate citizens of Charleston; the scream, the
yell of the miserable unresisting African, bleeding under
the scourge of relentless power, affords music to your ears!
Ah! from what unfriendly cause does this arise? Has the God
of heaven, in anger, here changed the order of nature? In
every other region, without exception, in a similar degree
of latitude, the same sun which ripens the tamarind and the
anana, ameliorates the temper, and disposes it to gentleness
and kindness. In India and other countries, not very
different in climate from the southern parts of the United
States, the inhabitants are distinguished for a softness and
inoffensiveness of manners, degenerating almost to
effeminacy; it is here then, only, that we are exempt from
the general influence of climate: here only that, in spite
of it, we are cruel and ferocious! Poor Carolina!"

And with regard to the manners of the Carolinians he assured the young lady that if there was one State in the Union which could justly claim superiority to the rest, in social refinement and the art of elegant living, it was South Carolina, where the division of the people into the very poor and the very rich left to the latter class abundant leisure for the pursuit of literature and the enjoyment of society.

"The possession of slaves," he owns,

"renders them proud, impatient of restraint, and gives them
a haughtiness of manner which, to those unaccustomed to
them, is disagreeable; but we find among them a high sense
of honor, a delicacy of sentiment, and a liberality of mind,
which we look for in vain in the more commercial citizens of
the Northern States. The genius of the Carolinian, like the
inhabitants of all southern countries, is quick, lively, and
acute; in steadiness and perseverance he is naturally
inferior to the native of the North; but this defect of
climate is often overcome by his ambition or necessity; and,
whenever this happens, he seldom fails to distinguish
himself. In his temper he is gay and fond of company, open,
generous, and unsuspicious; easily irritated, and quick to
resent even the appearance of insult; but his passion, like
the fire of the flint, is lighted up and extinguished in the
same moment."

Such discussions end only in one way. Theodosia yielded the points in dispute. At Albany, on the 2d of February, 1801, while the country was ringing with the names of Jefferson and Burr, and while the world supposed that Burr was intriguing with all his might to defeat the wishes of the people by securing his own election to the Presidency, his daughter was married. The marriage was thus announced in the New York _Commercial Advertiser_ of February 7:--

"MARRIED.---At Albany, on the 2d instant, by the Rev. Mr.
JOHNSON, JOSEPH ALSTON, of South Carolina, to THEODOSIA
BURR, only child of AARON BURR, Esq."

They were married at Albany, because Colonel Burr, being a member of the Legislature, was residing at the capital of the State. One week the happy pair passed at Albany. Then to New York; whence, after a few days' stay, they began their long journey southward. Rejoined at Baltimore by Colonel Burr, they travelled in company to Washington, where, on the 4th of March, Theodosia witnessed the inauguration of Mr. Jefferson, and the induction of her father into the Vice-Presidency. Father and child parted a day or two after the ceremony. The only solid consolation, he said in his first letter to her, that he had for the loss of her dear companionship, was a belief that she would be happy, and the certainty that they should often meet. And, on his return to New York, he told her that he had approached his home as he would "the sepulchre of all his friends." "Dreary, solitary, comfortless. It was no longer _home_." Hence his various schemes of a second marriage, to which Theodosia urged him. He soon had the comfort of hearing that the reception of his daughter in South Carolina was as cordial and affectionate as his heart could have wished.

Theodosia now enjoyed three as happy years as ever fell to the lot of a young wife. Tenderly cherished by her husband, whom she devotedly loved, caressed by society, surrounded by affectionate and admiring relations, provided bountifully with all the means of enjoyment, living in the summer in the mountains of Carolina, or at the home of her childhood, Richmond Hill, passing the winters in gay and luxurious Charleston, honored for her own sake, for her father's, and her husband's, the years glided rapidly by, and she seemed destined to remain to the last Fortune's favorite child. One summer she and her husband visited Niagara, and penetrated the domain of the chieftain Brant, who gave them royal entertainment. Once she had the great happiness of receiving her father under her own roof, and of seeing the honors paid by the people of the State to the Vice-President. Again she spent a summer at Richmond Hill and Saratoga, leaving her husband for the first time. She told him on this occasion that every _woman_ must prefer the society of the North to that of the South, whatever she might say. "If she denies it, she is set down in my mind as insincere and weakly prejudiced." But, like a fond and loyal wife, she wrote, "Where you are, there is my country, and in you are centred all my wishes."

She was a mother too. That engaging and promising boy, Aaron Burr Alston, the delight of his parents and of his grandfather, was born in the second year of the marriage. This event seemed to complete her happiness. For a time, it is true, she paid dearly for it by the loss of her former robust and joyous health. But the boy was worth the price. "If I can see without prejudice," wrote Colonel Burr, "there never was a finer boy"; and the mother's letters are full of those sweet, trifling anecdotes which mothers love to relate of their offspring. Her father still urged her to improve her mind, for her own and her son's sake, telling her that all she could learn would necessarily find its way to the mind of the boy. "Pray take in hand," he writes, "some book which requires attention and study. You will, I fear, lose the habit of study, which would be a greater misfortune than to lose your head." He praised, too, the ease, good-sense, and sprightliness of her letters, and said truly that her style, at its best, was not inferior to that of Madame de Sévigné.

Life is frequently styled a checkered scene. But it was the peculiar lot of Theodosia to experience during the first twenty-one years of her life nothing but prosperity and happiness, and during the remainder of her existence nothing but misfortune and sorrow. Never had her father's position seemed so strong and enviable as during his tenure of the office of Vice-President; but never had it been in reality so hollow and precarious. Holding property valued at two hundred thousand dollars, he was so deeply in debt that nothing but the sacrifice of his landed estate could save him from bankruptcy. At the age of thirty he had permitted himself to be drawn from a lucrative and always increasing professional business to the fascinating but most costly pursuit of political honors. And now; when he stood at a distance of only one step from the highest place, he was pursued by a clamorous host of creditors, and compelled to resort to a hundred expedients to maintain the expensive establishments supposed to be necessary to a Vice-President's dignity. His political position was as hollow as his social eminence. Mr. Jefferson was firmly resolved that Aaron Burr should not be his successor; and the great families of New York, whom Burr had united to win the victory over Federalism, were now united to bar the further advancement of a man whom they chose to regard as an interloper and a parvenu. If Burr's private life had been stainless, if his fortune had been secure, if he had been in his heart a Republican and a Democrat, if he had been a man earnest in the people's cause, if even his talents had been as superior as they were supposed to be, such a combination of powerful families and political influence might have retarded, but could not have prevented, his advancement; for he was still in the prime of his prime, and the people naturally side with a man who is the architect of his own fortunes.

On the 1st of July, 1804, Burr sat in the library of Richmond Hill writing to Theodosia. The day was unseasonably cold, and a fire blazed upon the hearth. The lord of the mansion was chilly and serious. An hour before he had taken the step which made the duel with Hamilton inevitable, though eleven days were to elapse before the actual encounter. He was tempted to prepare the mind of his child for the event, but he forebore. Probably his mind had been wandering into the past, and recalling his boyhood; for he quoted a line of poetry which he had been wont to use in those early days. "Some very wise man has said," he wrote,

"'Oh, fools, who think it solitude to be alone!'

"This is but poetry. Let us, therefore, drop the subject, lest it lead to another, on which I have imposed silence on myself." Then he proceeds, in his usual gay and agreeable manner, again urging her to go on in the pursuit of knowledge. His last thoughts before going to the field were with her and for her. His last request to her husband was that he should do all that in him lay to encourage her to improve her mind.

The bloody deed was done. The next news Theodosia received from her father was that he was a fugitive from the sudden abhorrence of his fellow-citizens; that an indictment for murder was hanging over his head; that his career in New York was, in all probability, over forever; and that he was destined to be for a time a wanderer on the earth. Her happy days were at an end. She never blamed her father for this, or for any act of his; on the contrary, she accepted without questioning his own version of the facts, and his own view of the morality of what he had done. He had formed her mind and tutored her conscience. He _was_ her conscience. But though she censured him not, her days and nights were embittered by anxiety from this time to the last day of her life. A few months later her father, black with hundreds of miles of travel in an open canoe, reached her abode in South Carolina, and spent some weeks there before appearing for the last time in the chair of the Senate; for, ruined as he was in fortune and good name, indicted for murder in New York and New Jersey, he was still Vice-President of the United States, and he was resolved to reappear upon the public scene, and do the duty which the Constitution assigned him.

The Mexican scheme followed. Theodosia and her husband were both involved in it. Mr. Alston advanced money for the project, which was never repaid, and which, in his will, he forgave. His entire loss, in consequence of his connection with that affair, may be reckoned at about fifty thousand dollars. Theodosia entirely and warmly approved the dazzling scheme. The throne of Mexico, she thought, was an object worthy of her father's talents, and one which would repay him for the loss of a brief tenure of the Presidency, and be a sufficient triumph over the men who were supposed to have thwarted him. Her boy, too,--would he not be heir-presumptive to a throne?

The recent publication of the "Blennerhassett Papers" appears to dispel all that remained of the mystery which the secretive Burr chose to leave around the object of his scheme. We can now say with almost absolute certainty that Burr's objects were the following: The throne of Mexico for himself and his heirs; the seizure and organization of Texas as preliminary to the grand design. The purchase of lands on the Washita was for the three-fold purpose of veiling the real object, providing a rendezvous, and having the means of tempting and rewarding those of the adventurers who were not in the secret. We can also now discover the designed distribution of honors and places: Aaron L, Emperor; Joseph Alston, Head of the Nobility and Chief Minister; Aaron Burr Alston, heir to the throne; Theodosia, Chief Lady of the Court and Empire; Wilkinson, General-in-Chief of the Army; Blennerhassett, Embassador to the Court of St. James; Commodore Truxton (perhaps), Admiral of the Navy. There is not an atom of new _evidence_ which warrants the supposition that Burr had any design to sever the Western States from the Union. If he himself had ever contemplated such an event, it is almost unquestionable that his followers were ignorant of it.

The scheme exploded. Theodosia and her husband had joined him at the home of the Blennerhassetts, and they were near him when the President's proclamation dashed the scheme to atoms, scattered the band of adventurers, and sent Burr a prisoner to Richmond, charged with high treason. Mr. Alston, in a public letter to the Governor of South Carolina, solemnly declared that he was wholly ignorant of any treasonable design on the part of his father-in-law, and repelled with honest warmth the charge of his own complicity with a design so manifestly absurd and hopeless as that of a dismemberment of the Union. Theodosia, stunned with the unexpected blow, returned with her husband to South Carolina, ignorant of her father's fate. He was carried through that State on his way to the North, and there it was that he made his well-known attempt to appeal to the civil authorities and get deliverance from the guard of soldiers. From Richmond he wrote her a hasty note, informing her of his arrest. She and her husband joined him soon, and remained with him during his trial.

At Richmond, during the six months of the trial, Burr tasted the last of the sweets of popularity. The party opposed to Mr. Jefferson made his cause their own, and gathered round the fallen leader with ostentatious sympathy and aid. Ladies sent him bouquets, wine, and dainties for his table, and bestowed upon his daughter the most affectionate and flattering attentions. Old friends from New York and new friends from the West were there to cheer and help the prisoner. Andrew Jackson was conspicuously his friend and defender, declaiming in the streets upon the tyranny of the Administration and the perfidy of Wilkinson, Burr's chief accuser. Washington Irving, then in the dawn of his great renown, who had given the first efforts of his youthful pen to Burr's newspaper, was present at the trial, full of sympathy for a man whom he believed to be the victim of treachery and political animosity. Doubtless he was not wanting in compassionate homage to the young matron from South Carolina. Mr. Irving was then a lawyer, and had been retained as one of Burr's counsel; not to render service in the court-room, but in the expectation that his pen would be employed in staying the torrent of public opinion that was setting against his client. Whether or not he wrote in his behalf does not appear. But his private letters, written at Richmond during the trial, show plainly enough that, if his head was puzzled by the confused and contradictory evidence, his heart and his imagination were on the side of the prisoner.

Theodosia's presence at Richmond was of more value to her father than the ablest of his counsel. Every one appears to have loved, admired, and sympathized with her. "You can't think," wrote Mrs. Blennerhassett, "with what joy and pride I read what Colonel Burr says of his daughter. I never could love one of my own sex as I do her." Blennerhassett himself was not less her friend. Luther Martin, Burr's chief counsel, almost worshipped her. "I find," wrote Blennerhassett,

"that Luther Martin's idolatrous admiration of Mrs. Alston
is almost as excessive as my own, but far more beneficial to
his interest and injurious to his judgment, as it is the
medium of his blind attachment to her father, whose secrets
and views, past, present, or to come, he is and wishes to
remain ignorant of. Nor can he see a speck in the character
or conduct of Alston, for the best of all reasons with him,
namely, that Alston has such a wife."

It plainly appears, too, from the letters and journal of Blennerhassett, that Alston did all in his power to promote the acquittal and aid the fallen fortunes of Burr, and that he did so, not because he believed in him, but because he loved his Theodosia.

Acquitted by the jury, but condemned at the bar of public opinion, denounced by the press, abhorred by the Republican party, and still pursued by his creditors, Burr, in the spring of 1805, lay concealed at New York preparing for a secret flight to Europe. Again his devoted child travelled northward to see him once more before he sailed. For some weeks both were in the city, meeting only by night at the house of some tried friend, but exchanging notes and letters from hour to hour. One whole night they spent together, just before his departure. To her he committed his papers, the accumulation of thirty busy years; and it was she who was to collect the debts due him, and thus provide for his maintenance in Europe.

Burr was gay and confident to the last, for he was strong in the belief that the British Ministry would adopt his scheme and aid in tearing Mexico from the grasp of Napoleon. Theodosia was sick and sorrowful, but bore bravely up and won her father's commendation for her fortitude. In one of the early days of June father and daughter parted, to meet no more on earth.

The four years of Burr's fruitless exile were to Theodosia years of misery. She could not collect the debts on which they had relied. The embargo reduced the rice-planters to extreme embarrassment. Her husband no longer sympathized with her in her yearning love for her father, though loving her as tenderly as ever. Old friends in New York cooled toward her. Her health was precarious. Months passed without bringing a word from over the sea; and the letters that did reach her, lively and jovial as they were, contained no good news. She saw her father expelled from England, wandering aimless in Sweden and Germany, almost a prisoner in Paris, reduced to live on potatoes and dry bread; while his own countrymen showed no signs of relenting toward him. In many a tender passage she praised his fortitude. "I witness," she wrote, in a well-known letter,

"your extraordinary fortitude with new wonder at every new
misfortune. Often, after reflecting on this subject, you
appear to me so superior, so elevated above all other men; I
contemplate you with such a strange mixture of humility,
admiration, reverence, love, and pride, that very little
superstition would be necessary to make me worship you as a
superior being; such enthusiasm does your character excite
in me. When I afterward revert to myself, how insignificant
do my best qualities appear! My vanity would be greater if I
had not been placed so near you; and yet my pride is our
relationship. I had rather not live than not be the daughter
of such a man."

Mr. Madison was President then. In other days her father had been on terms of peculiar intimacy with Madison and his beautiful and accomplished wife. Burr, in his later years, used to say that it was he who had brought about the match which made Mrs. Madison an inmate of the Presidential mansion. With the members of Madison's Cabinet, too, he had been socially and politically familiar. When Theodosia perceived that her father had no longer a hope of success in his Mexican project, she became anxious for his return to America. But against this was the probability that the Administration would again arrest him and bring him to trial for the third time. Theodosia ventured to write to her old friend, Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, asking him to interpose on her father's behalf. A letter still more interesting than this has recently come to light. It was addressed by Theodosia to Mrs. Madison. The coldest heart cannot read this eloquent and pathetic production without emotion. She writes:--

"MADAM,--You may perhaps be surprised at receiving a letter
from one with whom you have had so little intercourse for
the last few years. But your surprise will cease when you
recollect that my father, once your friend, is now in exile;
and that the President only can restore him to me and his
country.

"Ever since the choice of the people was first declared in
favor of Mr. Madison, my heart, amid the universal joy, has
beat with the hope that I, too, should soon have reason to
rejoice. Convinced that Mr. Madison would neither feel nor
judge from the feelings or judgment of others, I had no
doubt of his hastening to relieve a man whose character he
had been enabled to appreciate during a confidential
intercourse of long continuance, and whom [he] must know
incapable of the designs attributed to him. My anxiety on
this subject, has, however, become too painful to be
alleviated by anticipations which no events have yet tended
to justify; and in this state of intolerable suspense I have
determined to address myself to you, and request that you
will, _in my name_, apply to the President for a removal of
the prosecution now existing against AARON BURR. I still
expect it from him as a man of feeling and candor, as one
acting for the world and for posterity.

"Statesmen, I am aware, deem it necessary that sentiments of
liberality, and even justice, should yield to considerations
of policy; but what policy can require the absence of my
father at present? Even had he contemplated the project for
which he stands arraigned, evidently to pursue it any
further would now be impossible. There is not left one
pretext of alarm even to calumny; for bereft of fortune, of
popular favor, and almost of friends, what could he
accomplish? And whatever may be the apprehensions or the
clamors of the ignorant and the interested, surely the
timid, illiberal system which would sacrifice a man to a
remote and unreasonable possibility that he might infringe
some law founded on an unjust, unwarrantable suspicion that
he would desire it, cannot be approved by Mr. Madison, and
must be unnecessary to a President so loved, so honored.
Why, then, is my father banished from a country for which he
has encountered wounds and dangers and fatigue for years?
Why is he driven from his friends, from an only child, to
pass an unlimited time in exile, and that, too, at an age
when others are reaping the harvest of past toils, or ought
at least to be providing seriously for the comfort of
ensuing years? I do not seek to soften you by this
recapitulation. I only wish to remind you of all the
injuries which are inflicted on one of the first characters
the United States ever produced.

"Perhaps it may be well to assure you there is no truth in a
report lately circulated, that my father intends returning
immediately. He never will return to conceal himself in a
country on which he has conferred distinction.

"To whatever fate Mr. Madison may doom this application, I
trust it will be treated with delicacy. Of this I am the
more desirous as Mr. Alston is ignorant of the step I have
taken in writing to you, which, perhaps, nothing could
excuse but the warmth of filial affection. If it be an
error, attribute it to the indiscreet zeal of a daughter
whose soul sinks at the gloomy prospect of a long and
indefinite separation from a father almost adored, and who
can leave unattempted nothing which offers the slightest
hope of procuring him redress. What, indeed, would I not
risk once more to see him, to hang upon him, to place my
child on his knee, and again spend my days in the happy
occupation of endeavoring to anticipate all his wishes.

"Let me entreat, my dear Madam, that you will have the
consideration and goodness to answer me as speedily as
possible; my heart is sore with doubt and patient waiting
for something definitive. No apologies are made for giving
you this trouble, which I am sure you will not deem irksome
to take for a daughter, an affectionate daughter, thus
situated. Inclose your letter for me to A.J. Frederic
Prevost, Esq., near New Rochelle, New York.

"That every happiness may attend you,

"Is the sincere wish of

"THEO. BURR ALSTON."

This letter was probably not ineffectual. Certain it is that government offered no serious obstacle to Burr's return, and instituted no further proceedings against him. Probably, too, Theodosia received some kind of assurance to this effect, for we find her urging her father, not only to return, but to go boldly to New York among his old friends, and resume there the practice of his profession. The great danger to be apprehended was from his creditors, who then had power to confine a debtor within limits, if not to throw him into prison. "_If the worst comes to the worst_" wrote this fond and devoted daughter, "_I will leave everything to suffer with you_." The Italics are her own.

He came at length. He landed in Boston, and sent word of his arrival to Theodosia. Rejoiced as she was, she replied vaguely, partly in cipher, fearing lest her letter might be opened on the way, and the secret of her father's arrival be prematurely disclosed. She told him that her own health was tolerable; that her child, then a fine boy of eleven, was well; that "his little soul warmed at the sound of his grandfather's name"; and that his education, under a competent tutor, was proceeding satisfactorily. She gave directions respecting her father's hoped-for journey to South Carolina in the course of the summer; and advised him, in case war should be declared with England, to offer his services to the government. He reached New York in May, 1812, and soon had the pleasure of informing his daughter that his reception had been more friendly than he could have expected, and that in time his prospects were fair of a sufficiently lucrative practice.

Surely, now, after so many years of anxiety and sorrow, Theodosia--still a young woman, not thirty years of age, still enjoying her husband's love---might have reasonably expected a happy life. Alas! there was no more happiness in store for her on this side of the grave. The first letter which Burr received from his son-in-law after his arrival in New York contained news which struck him to the heart.

"A few miserable weeks since," writes Mr. Alston, "and in spite of all the embarrassments, the troubles, and disappointments which have fallen to our lot since we parted, I would have congratulated you on your return in the language of happiness. With my wife on one side and my boy on the other, I felt myself superior to depression. The present was enjoyed, the future was anticipated with enthusiasm. One dreadful blow has destroyed us; reduced us to the veriest, the most sublimated wretchedness. That boy, on whom all rested,--our companion, our friend,--he who was to have transmitted down the mingled blood of Theodosia and myself,--he who was to have redeemed all your glory, and shed new lustre upon our families,--that boy, at once our happiness and our pride, is taken from us,--_is dead_. We saw him dead. My own hand surrendered him to the grave; yet we are alive. But it is past. I will not conceal from you that life is a burden, which, heavy as it is, we shall both support, if not with dignity, at least with decency and firmness. Theodosia has endured all that a human being could endure; but her admirable mind will triumph. She supports herself in a manner worthy of your daughter."

The mother's heart was almost broken.

"There is no more joy for me," she wrote.

"The world is a blank. I have lost my boy. My child is gone
forever. May Heaven, by other blessings, make you some
amends for the noble grandson you have lost! Alas! my dear
father, I do live, but how does it happen? Of what am I
formed that I live, and why? Of what service can I be in
this world, either to you or any one else, with a body
reduced to premature old age, and a mind enfeebled and
bewildered? Yet, since it is my lot to live, I will endeavor
to fulfil my part, and exert myself to my utmost, though
this life must henceforth be to me a bed of thorns.
Whichever way I turn, the same anguish still assails me. You
talk of consolation. Ah! you know not what you have lost. I
think Omnipotence could give me no equivalent for my boy;
no, none,--none."

She could not be comforted. Her health gave way. Her husband thought that if anything could restore her to tranquillity and health it would be the society of her father; and so, at the beginning of winter, it was resolved that she should attempt the dangerous voyage. Her father sent a medical friend from New York to attend her.

"Mr. Alston," wrote this gentleman,

"seemed rather hurt that you should conceive it necessary to
send a person here, as he or one of his brothers would
attend Mrs. Alston to New York. I told him you had some
opinion of my medical talents; that you had learned your
daughter was in a low state of health, and required unusual
attention, and medical attention on her voyage; that I had
torn myself from my family to perform this service for my
friend."

And again, a few days after:--

"I have engaged a passage to New York for your daughter in a
pilot-boat that has been out privateering, but has come in
here, and is refitting merely to get to New York. My only
fears are that Governor Alston may think the mode of
conveyance too undignified, and object to it; but Mrs.
Alston is fully bent on going. You must not be surprised, to
see her very low, feeble, and emaciated. Her complaint is an
almost incessant nervous fever."

The rest is known. The vessel sailed. Off Cape Hatteras, during a gale that swept the coast from Maine to Georgia, the pilot-boat went down, and not one escaped to tell the tale. The vessel was never heard of more. So perished this noble, gifted, ill-starred lady.

The agonizing scenes that followed may be imagined. Father and husband were kept long in suspense. Even when many weeks had elapsed without bringing tidings of the vessel, there still remained a forlorn hope that some of her passengers might have been rescued by an outward-bound ship, and might return, after a year or two had gone by, from some distant port. Burr, it is said, acquired a habit, when walking upon the Battery, of looking wistfully down the harbor at the arriving ships, as if still cherishing a faint, fond hope that his Theo was coming to him from the other side of the world. When, years after, the tale was brought to him that his daughter had been carried off by pirates and might be still alive, he said: "No, no, no; if my Theo had survived that storm, she would have found her way to me. Nothing could have kept my Theo from her father."

It was these sad events, the loss of his daughter and her boy, that severed Aaron Burr from the human race. Hope died within him. Ambition died. He yielded to his doom, and walked among men, not melancholy, but indifferent, reckless, and alone. With his daughter and his grandson to live and strive for, he might have done something in his later years to redeem his name and atone for his errors. Bereft of these, he had not in his moral nature that which enables men who have gone astray to repent and begin a better life.

Theodosia's death broke her husband's heart. Few letters are so affecting as the one which he wrote to Burr when, at length, the certainty of her loss could no longer be resisted.

"My boy--my wife--gone both! This, then, is the end of all
the hopes we had formed. You may well observe that you feel
severed from the human race. She was the last tie that bound
us to the species. What have we left? ... Yet, after all, he
is a poor actor who cannot sustain his little hour upon the
stage, be his part what it may. But the man who has been
deemed worthy of the heart of _Theodosia Burr_, and who has
felt what it was to be blessed with such a woman's, will
never forget his elevation."

He survived his wife four years. Among the papers of Theodosia was found, after her death, a letter which she had written a few years before she died, at a time when she supposed her end was near. Upon the envelope was written,--"My husband. To be delivered after my death. I wish this to be read _immediately_, and before my burial." Her husband never saw it, for he never had the courage to look into the trunk that contained her treasures. But after his death the trunk was sent to Burr, who found and preserved this affecting composition. We cannot conclude our narrative more fitly than by transcribing the thoughts that burdened the heart of Theodosia in view of her departure from the world. First, she gave directions respecting the disposal of her jewelry and trinkets, giving to each of her friends some token of her love. Then she besought her husband to provide at once for the support of "Peggy," an aged servant of her father, formerly housekeeper at Richmond Hill, to whom, in her father's absence, she had contrived to pay a small pension. She then proceeded in these affecting terms:--

"To you, my beloved, I leave our child; the child of my
bosom, who was once a part of myself, and from whom I shall
shortly be separated by the cold grave. You love him now;
henceforth love him for me also. And oh, my husband, attend
to this last prayer of a doting mother. Never, never listen
to what any other person tells you of him. Be yourself his
judge on all occasions. He has faults; see them, and correct
them yourself. Desist not an instant from your endeavors to
secure his confidence. It is a work which requires as much
uniformity of conduct as warmth of affection toward him. I
know, my beloved, that you can perceive what is right on
this subject as on every other. But recollect, these are the
last words I can ever utter. It will tranquillize my last
moments to have disburdened myself of them.

"I fear you will scarcely be able to read this scrawl, but I
feel hurried and agitated. Death is not welcome to me. I
confess it is ever dreaded. You have made me too fond of
life. Adieu, then, thou kind, thou tender husband. Adieu,
friend of my heart. May Heaven prosper you, and may we meet
hereafter. Adieu; perhaps we may never see each other again
in this world. You are away, I wished to hold you fast, and
prevented you from going this morning. But He who is wisdom
itself ordains events; we must submit to them. Least of all
should I murmur. I, on whom so many blessings have been
showered,--whose days have been numbered by bounties,--who
have had such a husband, such a child, and such a father. O
pardon me, my God, if I regret leaving these. I resign
myself. Adieu, once more, and for the last time, my beloved.
Speak of me often to our son. Let him love the memory of his
mother, and let him know how he was loved by her. Your wife,
your fond wife,

"THEO.

"Let my father see my son sometimes. Do not be unkind toward
him whom I have loved so much, I beseech you. Burn all my
papers except my father's letters, which I beg you to return
him. Adieu, my sweet boy. Love your father; be grateful and
affectionate to him while he lives; be the pride of his
meridian, the support of his departing days. Be all that he
wishes; for he made your mother happy. Oh! my heavenly
Father, bless them both. If it is permitted, I will hover
round you, and guard you, and intercede for you. I hope for
happiness in the next world, for I have not been bad in
this.

"I had nearly forgotten to say that I charge you not to
allow me to be stripped and washed, as is usual. I am pure
enough thus to return to dust. Why, then, expose my person?
Pray see to this. If it does not appear contradictory or
silly, I beg to be kept as long as possible before I am
consigned to the earth."

JOHN JACOB ASTOR.

We all feel some curiosity respecting men who have been eminent in anything,--even in crime; and as this curiosity is natural and universal, it seems proper that it should be gratified. JOHN JACOB ASTOR, surpassed all the men of his generation in the accumulation of wealth. He began life a poor, hungry German boy, and died worth twenty millions of dollars. These facts are so remarkable, that there is no one who does not feel a desire to know by which means the result was produced, and whether the game was played fairly. We all wish, if not to be rich, yet to have more money than we now possess. We have known many kinds of men, but never one who felt that he had quite money enough. The three richest men now living in the United States are known to be as much interested in the increase of their possessions, and try as hard to increase them, as ever they did.

This universal desire to accumulate property is right, and necessary to the progress of the race. Like every other proper and virtuous desire, it may become excessive, and then it is a vice. So long as a man seeks property honestly, and values it as the means of independence, as the means of educating and comforting his family, as the means of securing a safe, dignified, and tranquil old age, as the means of private charity and public beneficence, let him bend himself heartily to his work, and enjoy the reward of his labors. It is a fine and pleasant thing to prosper in business, and to have a store to fall back upon in time of trouble.

The reader may learn from Astor's career how money is accumulated. Whether he can learn from it how money ought to be employed when it is obtained, he must judge for himself. In founding the Astor Library, John Jacob Astor did at least one magnificent deed, for which thousands unborn will honor his memory. That single act would atone for many errors.

In the hall of the Astor Library, on the sides of two of the pillars supporting its lofty roof of glass, are two little shelves, each holding a single work, never taken down and seldom perused, but nevertheless well worthy the attention of those who are curious in the subject of which they treat, namely, the human face divine. They are two marble busts, facing each other; one of the founder of the Library, the other of its first President, Washington Irving. A finer study in physiognomy than these two busts present can nowhere be found; for never were two men more unlike than Astor and Irving, and never were character and personal history more legibly recorded than in these portraits in marble. The countenance of the author is round, full, and handsome, the hair inclining to curl, and the chin to double. It is the face of a happy and genial man, formed to shine at the fireside and to beam from the head of a table. It is an open, candid, liberal, hospitable countenance, indicating far more power to please than to compel, but displaying in the position and carriage of the head much of that dignity which we are accustomed to call Roman. The face of the millionaire, on the contrary, is all strength; every line in it tells of concentration and power. The hair is straight and long; the forehead neither lofty nor ample, but powerfully developed in the perceptive and executive organs; the eyes deeper set in the head than those of Daniel Webster, and overhung with immense bushy eyebrows; the nose large, long, and strongly arched, the veritable nose of a man-compeller; the mouth, chin, and jaws all denoting firmness and force; the chest, that seat and throne of physical power, is broad and deep, and the back of the neck has something of the muscular fulness which we observe in the prize-fighter and the bull; the head behind the ears showing enough of propelling power, but almost totally wanting in the passional propensities which waste the force of the faculties, and divert the man from his principal object. As the spectator stands midway between the two busts, at some distance from both, Irving has the larger and the kinglier air, and the face of Astor seems small and set. It is only when you get close to the bust of Astor, observing the strength of each feature and its perfect proportion to the rest,--force everywhere, superfluity nowhere,--that you recognize the monarch of the counting-room; the brain which nothing could confuse or disconcert; the purpose that nothing could divert or defeat; the man who could with ease and pleasure grasp and control the multitudinous concerns of a business that embraced the habited and unhabited globe,--that employed ships in every sea, and men in every clime, and brought in to the coffers of the merchant the revenue of a king. That speechless bust tells us how it was that this man, from suffering in his father's poverty-stricken house the habitual pang of hunger, arrived at the greatest fortune, perhaps, ever accumulated in a single lifetime; you perceive that whatever thing this strong and compact man set himself to do, he would be certain to achieve unless stopped by something as powerful as a law of nature.

The monument of these two gifted men is the airy and graceful interior of which their busts are the only ornament. Astor founded the Library, but it was probably his regard for Irving that induced him to appropriate part of his wealth for a purpose not in harmony with his own humor. Irving is known to us all, as only wits and poets are ever known. But of the singular being who possessed so remarkable a genius for accumulation, of which this Library is one of the results, little has been imparted to the public, and of that little the greater part is fabulous.

A hundred years ago, in the poor little village of Waldorf, in the duchy of Baden, lived a jovial, good-for-nothing butcher, named Jacob Astor, who felt himself much more at home in the beer-house than at the fireside of his own house in the principal street of the village. At the best, the butcher of Waldorf must have been a poor man; for, at that day, the inhabitants of a German village enjoyed the luxury of fresh meat only on great days, such as those of confirmation, baptism, weddings, and Christmas.

The village itself was remote and insignificant, and though situated in the valley of the Rhine, the native home of the vine, a region of proverbial fertility, the immediate vicinity of Waldorf was not a rich or very populous country. The home of Jacob Astor, therefore, seldom knew any medium between excessive abundance and extreme scarcity, and he was not the man to make the superfluity of to-day provide for the need of to-morrow; which was the more unfortunate as the periods of abundance were few and far between, and the times of scarcity extended over the greater part of the year. It was the custom then in Germany for every farmer to provide a fatted pig, calf, or bullock, against the time of harvest; and as that joyful season approached, the village butcher went the round of the neighborhood, stopping a day or two at each house to kill the animals and convert their flesh into bacon, sausages, or salt beef. During this happy time, Jacob Astor, a merry dog, always welcome where pleasure and hilarity were going forward, had enough to drink, and his family had enough to eat. But the merry time lasted only six weeks. Then set in the season of scarcity, which was only relieved when there was a festival of the church, a wedding, a christening, or a birthday in some family of the village rich enough to provide an animal for Jacob's knife. The wife of this idle and improvident butcher was such a wife as such men usually contrive to pick up,--industrious, saving, and capable; the mainstay of his house. Often she remonstrated with her wasteful and beer-loving husband; the domestic sky was often overcast, and the children were glad to fly from the noise and dust of the tempest.

This roistering village butcher and his worthy, much-enduring wife were the parents of our millionaire. They had four sons: George Peter Astor, born in 1752; Henry Astor, born in 1754; John Melchior Astor, born in 1759; and John Jacob Astor, born July 17, 1763. Each of these sons made haste to fly from the privations and contentions of their home as soon as they were old enough; and, what is more remarkable, each of them had a cast of character precisely the opposite of their thriftless father. They were all saving, industrious, temperate, and enterprising, and all of them became prosperous men at an early period of their career. They were all duly instructed in their father's trade; each in turn carried about the streets of Waldorf the basket of meat, and accompanied the father in his harvest slaughtering tours. Jovial Jacob, we are told, gloried in being a butcher, but three of his sons, much to his disgust, manifested a repugnance to it, which was one of the causes of their flight from the parental nest. The eldest, who was the first to go, made his way to London, where an uncle was established in business as a maker of musical instruments. Astor and Broadwood was the name of the firm, a house that still exists under the title of Broadwood and Co., one of the most noted makers of pianos in England. In his uncle's manufactory George Astor served an apprenticeship, and became at length a partner in the firm. Henry Astor went next. He alone of his father's sons took to his father's trade. It used to be thrown in his teeth, when he was a thriving butcher in the city of New York, that he had come over to America as a private in the Hessian army. This may only have been the groundless taunt of an envious rival. It is certain, however, that he was a butcher in New York when it was a British post during the revolutionary war, and, remaining after the evacuation, made a large fortune in his business. The third son, John Melchior Astor, found employment in Germany, and arrived, at length, at the profitable post of steward to a nobleman's estate.

Abandoned thus by his three brothers, John Jacob Astor had to endure for some years a most cheerless and miserable lot. He lost his mother, too, from whom he had derived all that was good in his character and most of the happiness of his childhood. A step-mother replaced her, "who loved not Jacob," nor John Jacob. The father, still devoted to pleasure, quarrelled so bitterly with his new wife, that his son was often glad to escape to the house of a schoolfellow (living in 1854), where he would pass the night in a garret or outhouse, thankfully accepting for his supper a crust of dry bread, and returning the next morning to assist in the slaughter-house or carry out the meat. It was not often that he had enough to eat; his clothes were of the poorest description; and, as to money, he absolutely had none of it. The unhappiness of his home and the misconduct of his father made him ashamed to join in the sports of the village boys; and he passed much of his leisure alone, brooding over the unhappiness of his lot. The family increased, but not its income. It is recorded of him that he tended his little sisters with care and fondness, and sought in all ways to lessen the dislike and ill-humor of his step-mother.

It is not hardship, however, that enervates a lad. It is indulgence and luxury that do that. He grew a stout, healthy, tough, and patient boy, diligent and skilful in the discharge of his duty, often supplying the place of his father absent in merry-making. If, in later life, he overvalued money, it should not be forgotten that few men have had a harder experience of the want of money at the age when character is forming.