Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

26

MEMOIRS OF JOHN ADAMS DIX.

since whether this thought (for it was nothing more), if it had
been expressed, would have had any influence in saving her
from the infamy of her after-life. It is a wretched history of
ruin to her and misery to her respectable family-a history I
do not intend to narrate. When wxve parted I sincerely believe she was as pure in heart as she was in conduct. We
met once afterward in Boston. Ten years had gone by, and
I was a man. I went to see her, knowing her guilt and her
impenitence. She was then in the full bloom of womanhood,
and surpassingly beautiful. The interview was a very distressing one. It was unexpected to her, and the sight of me,
her friend and admirer in the days of her innocence, filled her
heart for the first time with shame and remorse. Two days
afterward her earthly career, begun in prosperity and virtue,
and ending in dishonor and guilt, was suddenly closed. It
was many weeks before I recovered from the shock I received
from this meeting and its sad sequel. I have anticipated the
close of this unhappy episode in my life in order to dismiss
it forever hereafter from my thoughts. If she had lived in
the days of Charles II. she might have been a Duchess of
Cleveland, or, in the reign of the late King of Bavaria, a
Countess of Landsfeldt. May God forgive her many transgressions, and, above all, the last act, by which she terminated
her miserable life!
I was not long in taking a high rank among the pupils of my
own age. I had a remarkable facility for acquiring languages;
and as the classics were at that day the chief branch of academic instruction, my proficiency was very marked. I also made
good progress as a speaker. A few years later an eminent
tragedian, who had given me a series of lessons in elocution,
said to my father, then in command of a regiment in the army
of the United States, "' Colonel, your son has great constitutional facilities for becoming an orator." I believe this was
the judgment-though it would have been expressed in less
sounding phrase-of the preceptor, the pupils, and the people
of the surrounding country, for it was not long before I ap