But no, no! do not
quite forget me. Remember me as you saw me one night - the night
you took the flower out of my hair and kissed it, saying that
Washington held many beautiful women, but that none of them save
myself had ever had the power to move your inmost heart-strings.
Ah, low was your voice and eloquent your eyes that hour, and I
forgot, - for a moment I forgot - everything but this pure love;
and the heartbeat it called up and the hope, never to be realized
- that I should live to hear you repeat the same sweet words in
our old age, in just such a tone and with just such a look. I
was innocent at that moment, innocent and good. I am willing
that you should remember me as I was that night.
"When I think of him lying cold and dead in the grave I myself
dug for him, my heart is like stone, but when I think of you -
"I am afraid to die; but I am more afraid of failing in courage.
I shall have the pistol tied to me; this will make it seem
inevitable to use it. Oh! that the next twenty-four hours could
be blotted out of time! Such horror can not be. I was born for
joy and gaiety; yet no dismal depth of misery and fear has been
spared me! But all on account of my own act. I do not accuse
God; I do not accuse man; I only accuse myself, and my thoughtless
grasping after pleasure.
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