II. Herman Barnhurst, a clergyman, who has lured from Philadelphia to New York, the only daughter of a merchant of the former city. This clergyman and his victim, are pursued by the Third of the Seven.
III. Arthur Dermoyne, a mechanic.
IV. Israel Yorke, a Banker.
V. Harry Royalton, of Hill Royal, S. C. His claim to an undivided seventh of the Estate, will be contested by his half brother and sister, Randolph and Esther, who although white, are alleged to have African blood in their veins.
VI. Beverly Barron, a "man of the world."
VII. Evelyn Somers, a New York "Merchant Prince."
2d. We shall find in New York, at the period before named, Charles Van Huyden, transformed into Col. Tarleton, and endeavoring to remove from his hands the blood of a man whom he has slain in a duel. His daughter "Frank" grown to womanhood, and brought into contact with "Nameless," who left in infancy at the hovel of John Hoffman, has after a childhood of terrible hardships—a young manhood darkened by madness and crime—suddenly appeared in New York, in company with a discharged convict. This convict is none other than John Hoffman the mechanic. And gliding through the narrative, and among its various actors, we shall find Martin Fulmer, or his successor.
With this preliminary sketch—necessarily brief and imperfect, for it covers a period of twenty-one years—the following narrative is submitted to the reader. Yet first, let us for a moment glance at the "Van Huyden Estate." This estate in 1823, was estimated at two millions of dollars. What is it in 1844?
The history of two millions of dollars in twenty-one years! Two millions left to go by itself, and ripen year after year, into new power, until at last the original sum is completely forgotten in the vast accumulation of capital. In the Old World twenty-one years glide by, and everything is the same. At the end of twenty-one years, two millions would still be two millions. Twenty-one years in the New World is as much as two centuries to the Old. The vast expanse of land; the constant influx of population; the space for growth afforded by institutions as different from those of Europe (that is from those of the past), as day from night—all contribute to this result. From 1823 to 1844, the New World, hardened by a childhood of battle and martyrdom, sprang into strong manhood. Behold the philosophy of modern wealth, manifested in the growth of the Van Huyden Estate. Without working itself it bids others to work. Left to the age, to the growth of the people, the increase of commerce and labor, it swells into a wealth that puts the Arabian Nights to shame. In 1823 it comprises certain pieces of land in the heart of New York, and in the open country beyond New York. In 1844 the city land has repeated its value by a hundred; the country lots have become the abiding place of the Merchant Princes of New York. Cents in 1823, become dollars in 1844. This by the progress of the age, by the labor of the millions, and without one effort on the part of the lands or their owner. In 1823 there is a country seat and farm on the North River; in 1844 the farm has become the seat of factories, mills, the dwelling place of five thousand tenants, whose labor has swelled the original value of $150,000 into ten millions of dollars. In 1823, five thousand acres, scattered over the wild west, are vaguely valued at $5000—in 1844 these acres, located in various parts of the west, are the sites of towns, villages, mines, teeming with a dense population, and worth thirty millions of dollars. In 1823 a tract of barren land among the mountains of Pennsylvania, is bought for one thousand dollars; in 1844 this tract, the location of mines of iron and coal, is worth twenty millions.
Thus in twenty-one years, by holding on to its own, the Van Huyden Estate has swelled from two millions to one hundred millions of dollars. The age moves on; it remains in its original proprietorship, swelled by the labor of millions, who derive but a penny where they bestow upon the estate a dollar. It works not; mankind works for it. Has this wealth no duties to mankind? Is there not something horrible in the thought of an entire generation, for mere subsistence, spending their lives, in order to make this man, this estate, or this corporation, the possessor of incredible wealth?
PROLOGUE
The lamp has gone out in the old familiar room! It used to shine, late at night upon the books, upon the pictures on the wall, and upon my face as I sat writing there! Oftentimes it shone upon another face which looked over my shoulder, and cheered me in my labor. But now the lamp has gone out—and forever. The face which looked upon me is gone; the coffin lid shut down upon it one Summer day! The room is dark forever. And the next room, where she used to sleep with her children—it is dark and still! The house is desolate! There are no voices to break its stillness! Her voice, and the voices of our children, are silent forever on this lower earth. My heart goes back to that house and to its rooms, and to the voices that once sounded there, and the faces which once made it glad, and with more than the bitterness of Death I confess, that Time can never return. Nevermore, nevermore, nevermore! Wealth may come; change of scene may deaden sorrow; wrestling with the world, may divert the soul from perpetual brooding, but the Truth is still the Truth, that Time can never return. And this is the end of all, after a life spent in perpetual battle—after toiling day and night for long years—after looking to the Future, hoping, struggling, suffering—to find at last, even before thirty years are mine, that the lamp has gone out, and forever! That those for whom I toiled and suffered—whose well-being was the impulse and the ultimate of all my exertions—are no longer with me, but gone to return never—nevermore. Upon this earth the lamp that lit my way through life, has indeed gone out, and forever. But is it not lighted now by a higher hand than mortal, and is it not shining now in a better world than this?
Once more I resume my pen. Since this work was commenced, Death has been busy with my home—death hath indeed laid my home desolate. It is a selfish thing to write for money, it is a base and a mean thing to write for fame, but it is a good and a holy thing to write for the approval of those whom we most intensely love. Deprived of this spring of action, it is hard, very hard to take up the pen once more. Write, write! but the face that once looked over your shoulder, and cheered you in your task, shall look over it no more. Write, write! and turn your gaze to every point of the horizon of life—not one face of home meets your eye.
Take up the pen once more. Banish the fast gathering memories—choke them down. Forget the actual of your own life, in the ideal to which the pen gives utterance. Brave old pen! Always trusted, never faithless! True through long years of toil, be true and steadfast now; when the face that once watched your progress is sleeping in graveyard dust. And when you write down a noble thought, or give utterance to a holy truth, may be, that face will smile upon your progress, even through the darkened glass which separates the present from the Better World.
PART FIRST.
"FRANK VAN HUYDEN."
DEC. 23, 1844.—EVENING.
CHAPTER I.
"DOES HE REMEMBER?"
"Does he remember?" was the exclamation of Frank, as concealing the history of the Life of Nameless within her bosom, a singular expression flashed over her beautiful face. "Does he remember?" was her thought—"Is he conscious of the words which have fallen from his lips? Does he pass from this singular state of trance, only to forget the real history of his life?"
The agitation which had convulsed the face of Nameless, at the moment when he emerged