Henri that the letter brought bad news of an old friend, but that it
pained me to speak of it; and you would have thought, by the grave and
tender way he talked to his mamma, that the boy was an experienced man
of forty, to say the least.

"But, Marie, how unjust is the world! how unjust both in praise and
blame! Poor Burr was the petted child of Society; yesterday she doted
on him, flattered him, smiled on his faults, and let him do what he
would without reproof; to-day she flouts and scorns and scoffs him, and
refuses to see the least good in him. I know that man, Marie,--and I
know, that, sinful as he may be before Infinite Purity, he is not so
much more sinful than all the other men of his time. Have I not been in
America? I know Jefferson; I knew poor Hamilton,--peace be with the
dead! Neither of them had a life that could bear the sort of trial to
which Burr's is subjected. When every secret fault, failing, and sin is
dragged out, and held up without mercy, what man can stand?

"But I know what irritates the world is that proud, disdainful calm
which will give neither sigh nor tear. It was not that he killed poor
Hamilton, but that he never seemed to care! Ah, there is that evil
demon of his life,--that cold, stoical pride, which haunts him like a
fate! But I know he _does_ feel; I know he is not as hard at heart as
he tries to be; I have seen too many real acts of pity to the
unfortunate, of tenderness to the weak, of real love to his friends, to
believe that. Great have been his sins against our sex, and God forbid
that the mothers of children should speak lightly of them I but is not
so susceptible a temperament, and so singular a power to charm as he
possessed, to be taken into account in estimating his temptations?
Because he is a sinning man, it does not follow that he is a demon. If
any should have cause to think bitterly of him, I should. He trifled