Penultimate Smiles

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• From: Jane Margaret Laight <jml27515@xxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:52:12 -0700

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CHAPTER XI.--COMPANIONSHIP IN MARRIAGE.

"Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, Shall win my love."--
SHAKSPEARE.

"In the husband Wisdom, In the wife Gentleness."--GEORGE HERBERT.

"If God had designed woman as man's master, He would have taken her
from his head; If as his slave, He would have taken her from his feet;
but as He designed her for his companion and equal, He took her from
his side."--SAINT AUGUSTINE.--'DE CIVITATE DEI.'

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies....
Her husband is known in the gates, and he sitteth among the elders of
the land.... Strength and honour are her clothing, and she shall
rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her
tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her
husband, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up
and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."--
PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.

THE character of men, as of women, is powerfully influenced by their
companionship in all the stages of life. We have already spoken of the
influence of the mother in forming the character of her children. She
makes the moral atmosphere in which they live, and by which their
minds and souls are nourished, as their bodies are by the physical
atmosphere they breathe. And while woman is the natural cherisher of
infancy and the instructor of childhood, she is also the guide and
counsellor of youth, and the confidant and companion of manhood, in
her various relations of mother, sister, lover, and wife. In short,
the influence of woman more or less affects, for good or for evil, the
entire destinies of man.

The respective social functions and duties of men and women are
clearly defined by nature. God created man AND woman, each to do their
proper work, each to fill their proper sphere. Neither can occupy the
position, nor perform the functions, of the other. Their several
vocations are perfectly distinct. Woman exists on her own account, as
man does on his, at the same time that each has intimate relations
with the other. Humanity needs both for the purposes of the race, and
in every consideration of social progress both must necessarily be
included.

Though companions and equals, yet, as regards the measure of their
powers, they are unequal. Man is stronger, more muscular, and of
rougher fibre; woman is more delicate, sensitive, and nervous. The one
excels in power of brain, the other in qualities of heart; and though
the head may rule, it is the heart that influences. Both are alike
adapted for the respective functions they have to perform in life; and
to attempt to impose woman's work upon man would be quite as absurd as
to attempt to impose man's work upon woman. Men are sometimes
womanlike, and women are sometimes manlike; but these are only
exceptions which prove the rule.

Although man's qualities belong more to the head, and woman's more to
the heart--yet it is not less necessary that man's heart should be
cultivated as well as his head, and woman's head cultivated as well as
her heart. A heartless man is as much out- of-keeping in civilized
society as a stupid and unintelligent woman. The cultivation of all
parts of the moral and intellectual nature is requisite to form the
man or woman of healthy and well- balanced character. Without sympathy
or consideration for others, man were a poor, stunted, sordid, selfish
being; and without cultivated intelligence, the most beautiful woman
were little better than a well-dressed doll.

It used to be a favourite notion about woman, that her weakness and
dependency upon others constituted her principal claim to admiration.
"If we were to form an image of dignity in a man," said Sir Richard
Steele, "we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to
the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right
woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender
fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other
sex, with some subordination to it, but an inferiority which makes her
lovely." Thus, her weakness was to be cultivated, rather than her
strength; her folly, rather than her wisdom. She was to be a weak,
fearful, tearful, characterless, inferior creature, with just sense
enough to understand the soft nothings addressed to her by the
"superior" sex. She was to be educated as an ornamental appanage of
man, rather as an independent intelligence--or as a wife, mother,
companion, or friend.

Pope, in one of his 'Moral Essays,' asserts that "most women have no
characters at all;" and again he says:-

"Ladies, like variegated tulips, show: 'Tis to their changes half
their charms we owe, Fine by defect and delicately weak."

This satire characteristically occurs in the poet's 'Epistle to Martha
Blount,' the housekeeper who so tyrannically ruled him; and in the
same verses he spitefully girds at Lady Mary Wortley Montague, at
whose feet he had thrown himself as a lover, and been contemptuously
rejected. But Pope was no judge of women, nor was he even a very wise
or tolerant judge of men.

It is still too much the practice to cultivate the weakness of woman
rather than her strength, and to render her attractive rather than
self-reliant. Her sensibilities are developed at the expense of her
health of body as well as of mind. She lives, moves, and has her being
in the sympathy of others. She dresses that she may attract, and is
burdened with accomplishments that she may be chosen. Weak, trembling,
and dependent, she incurs the risk of becoming a living embodiment of
the Italian proverb--"so good that she is good for nothing."

On the other hand, the education of young men too often errs on the
side of selfishness. While the boy is incited to trust mainly to his
own efforts in pushing his way in the world, the girl is encouraged to
rely almost entirely upon others. He is educated with too exclusive
reference to himself and she is educated with too exclusive reference
to him. He is taught to be self-reliant and self-dependent, while she
is taught to be distrustful of herself, dependent, and self-
sacrificing in all things. Thus, the intellect of the one is
cultivated at the expense of the affections, and the affections of the
other at the expense of the intellect.

It is unquestionable that the highest qualities of woman are displayed
in her relationship to others, through the medium of her affections.
She is the nurse whom nature has given to all humankind. She takes
charge of the helpless, and nourishes and cherishes those we love. She
is the presiding genius of the fireside, where she creates an
atmosphere of serenity and contentment suitable for the nurture and
growth of character in its best forms. She is by her very constitution
compassionate, gentle, patient, and self-denying. Loving, hopeful,
trustful, her eye sheds brightness everywhere. It shines upon coldness
and warms it, upon suffering and relieves it, upon sorrow and cheers
it:--

"Her silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the
heart and brain, though undescried, Winning its way with extreme
gentleness Through all the outworks of suspicion's pride."

Woman has been styled "the angel of the unfortunate." She is ready to
help the weak, to raise the fallen, to comfort the suffering. It was
characteristic of woman, that she should have been the first to build
and endow an hospital. It has been said that wherever a human being is
in suffering, his sighs call a woman to his side. When Mungo Park,
lonely, friendless, and famished, after being driven forth from an
African village by the men, was preparing to spend the night under a
tree, exposed to the rain and the wild beasts which there abounded, a
poor negro woman, returning from the labours of the field, took
compassion upon him, conducted him into her hut, and there gave him
food, succour, and shelter. (1)

But while the most characteristic qualities of woman are displayed
through her sympathies and affections, it is also necessary for her
own happiness, as a self-dependent being, to develope and strengthen
her character, by due self-culture, self-reliance, and self-control.
It is not desirable, even were it possible, to close the beautiful
avenues of the heart. Self-reliance of the best kind does not involve
any limitation in the range of human sympathy. But the happiness of
woman, as of man, depends in a great measure upon her individual
completeness of character. And that self-dependence which springs from
the due cultivation of the intellectual powers, conjoined with a
proper discipline of the heart and conscience, will enable her to be
more useful in life as well as happy; to dispense blessings
intelligently as well as to enjoy them; and most of all those which
spring from mutual dependence and social sympathy.

To maintain a high standard of purity in society, the culture of both
sexes must be in harmony, and keep equal pace. A pure womanhood must
be accompanied by a pure manhood. The same moral law applies alike to
both. It would be loosening the foundations of virtue, to countenance
the notion that because of a difference in sex, man were at liberty to
set morality at defiance, and to do that with impunity, which, if done
by a woman, would stain her character for life. To maintain a pure and
virtuous condition of society, therefore, man as well as woman must be
pure and virtuous; both alike shunning all acts impinging on the
heart, character, and conscience--shunning them as poison, which, once
imbibed, can never be entirely thrown out again, but mentally
embitters, to a greater or less extent, the happiness of after-life.

And here we would venture to touch upon a delicate topic. Though it is
one of universal and engrossing human interest, the moralist avoids
it, the educator shuns it, and parents taboo it. It is almost
considered indelicate to refer to Love as between the sexes; and young
persons are left to gather their only notions of it from the
impossible love-stories that fill the shelves of circulating
libraries. This strong and absorbing feeling, this BESOIN D'AIMER--
which nature has for wise purposes made so strong in woman that it
colours her whole life and history, though it may form but an episode
in the life of man--is usually left to follow its own inclinations,
and to grow up for the most part unchecked, without any guidance or
direction whatever.

Although nature spurns all formal rules and directions in affairs of
love, it might at all events be possible to implant in young minds
such views of Character as should enable them to discriminate between
the true and the false, and to accustom them to hold in esteem those
qualities of moral purity and integrity, without which life is but a
scene of folly and misery. It may not be possible to teach young
people to love wisely, but they may at least be guarded by parental
advice against the frivolous and despicable passions which so often
usurp its name. "Love," it has been said, "in the common acceptation
of the term, is folly; but love, in its purity, its loftiness, its
unselfishness, is not only a consequence, but a proof, of our moral
excellence. The sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self
in the admiration engendered by it, all prove its claim to a high
moral influence. It is the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish
part of our nature."

It is by means of this divine passion that the world is kept ever
fresh and young. It is the perpetual melody of humanity. It sheds an
effulgence upon youth, and throws a halo round age. It glorifies the
present by the light it casts backward, and it lightens the future by
the beams it casts forward. The love which is the outcome of esteem
and admiration, has an elevating and purifying effect on the
character. It tends to emancipate one from the slavery of self. It is
altogether unsordid; itself is its only price. It inspires gentleness,
sympathy, mutual faith, and confidence. True love also in a measure
elevates the intellect. "All love renders wise in a degree," says the
poet Browning, and the most gifted minds have been the sincerest
lovers. Great souls make all affections great; they elevate and
consecrate all true delights. The sentiment even brings to light
qualities before lying dormant and unsuspected. It elevates the
aspirations, expands the soul, and stimulates the mental powers. One
of the finest compliments ever paid to a woman was that of Steele,
when he said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings, "that to have loved her was a
liberal education." Viewed in this light, woman is an educator in the
highest sense, because, above all other educators, she educates
humanly and lovingly.

It has been said that no man and no woman can be regarded as complete
in their experience of life, until they have been subdued into union
with the world through their affections. As woman is not woman until
she has known love, neither is man man. Both are requisite to each
other's completeness. Plato entertained the idea that lovers each
sought a likeness in the other, and that love was only the divorced
half of the original human being entering into union with its
counterpart. But philosophy would here seem to be at fault, for
affection quite as often springs from unlikeness as from likeness in
its object.

The true union must needs be one of mind as well as of heart, and
based on mutual esteem as well as mutual affection. "No true and
enduring love," says Fichte, "can exist without esteem ; every other
draws regret after it, and is unworthy of any noble human soul." One
cannot really love the bad, but always something that we esteem and
respect as well as admire. In short, true union must rest on qualities
of character, which rule in domestic as in public life.

But there is something far more than mere respect and esteem in the
union between man and wife. The feeling on which it rests is far
deeper and tenderer--such, indeed, as never exists between men or
between women. "In matters of affection," says Nathaniel Hawthorne,
"there is always an impassable gulf between man and man. They can
never quite grasp each other's hands, and therefore man never derives
any intimate help, any heart-sustenance, from his brother man, but
from woman--his mother, his sister, or his wife." (2)

Man enters a new world of joy, and sympathy, and human interest,
through the porch of love. He enters a new world in his home-- the
home of his own making--altogether different from the home of his
boyhood, where each day brings with it a succession of new joys and
experiences. He enters also, it may be, a new world of trials and
sorrows, in which he often gathers his best culture and discipline.
"Family life," says Sainte-Beuve, "may be full of thorns and cares;
but they are fruitful: all others are dry thorns." And again: "If a
man's home, at a certain period of life, does not contain children, it
will probably be found filled with follies or with vices." (3)

A life exclusively occupied in affairs of business insensibly tends to
narrow and harden the character. It is mainly occupied with self-
watching for advantages, and guarding against sharp practice on the
part of others. Thus the character unconsciously tends to grow
suspicious and ungenerous. The best corrective of such influences is
always the domestic; by withdrawing the mind from thoughts that are
wholly gainful, by taking it out of its daily rut, and bringing it
back to the sanctuary of home for refreshment and rest:

"That truest, rarest light of social joy, Which gleams upon the man of
many cares."

"Business," says Sir Henry Taylor, "does but lay waste the approaches
to the heart, whilst marriage garrisons the fortress." And however the
head may be occupied, by labours of ambition or of business--if the
heart be not occupied by affection for others and sympathy with them--
life, though it may appear to the outer world to be a success, will
probably be no success at all, but a failure. (4)

A man's real character will always be more visible in his household
than anywhere else; and his practical wisdom will be better exhibited
by the manner in which he bears rule there, than even in the larger
affairs of business or public life. His whole mind may be in his
business; but, if he would be happy, his whole heart must be in his
home. It is there that his genuine qualities most surely display
themselves--there that he shows his truthfulness, his love, his
sympathy, his consideration for others, his uprightness, his
manliness--in a word, his character. If affection be not the governing
principle in a household, domestic life may be the most intolerable of
despotisms. Without justice, also, there can be neither love,
confidence, nor respect, on which all true domestic rule is founded.

Erasmus speaks of Sir Thomas More's home as "a school and exercise of
the Christian religion." "No wrangling, no angry word was heard in it;
no one was idle; every one did his duty with alacrity, and not without
a temperate cheerfulness." Sir Thomas won all hearts to obedience by
his gentleness. He was a man clothed in household goodness; and he
ruled so gently and wisely, that his home was pervaded by an
atmosphere of love and duty. He himself spoke of the hourly
interchange of the smaller acts of kindness with the several members
of his family, as having a claim upon his time as strong as those
other public occupations of his life which seemed to others so much
more serious and important.

But the man whose affections are quickened by home-life, does not
confine his sympathies within that comparatively narrow sphere. His
love enlarges in the family, and through the family it expands into
the world. "Love," says Emerson, "is a fire that, kindling its first
embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering
spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms
and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart
of all, and so lights up the whole world and nature with its generous
flames."

It is by the regimen of domestic affection that the heart of man is
best composed and regulated. The home is the woman's kingdom, her
state, her world--where she governs by affection, by kindness, by the
power of gentleness. There is nothing which so settles the turbulence
of a man's nature as his union in life with a highminded woman. There
he finds rest, contentment, and happiness--rest of brain and peace of
spirit. He will also often find in her his best counsellor, for her
instinctive tact will usually lead him right when his own unaided
reason might be apt to go wrong. The true wife is a staff to lean upon
in times of trial and difficulty; and she is never wanting in sympathy
and solace when distress occurs or fortune frowns. In the time of
youth, she is a comfort and an ornament of man's life; and she remains
a faithful helpmate in maturer years, when life has ceased to be an
anticipation, and we live in its realities.

What a happy man must Edmund Burke have been, when he could say of his
home, "Every care vanishes the moment I enter under my own roof!" And
Luther, a man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I
would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus
without her." Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God
can confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with
whom he may live in peace and tranquillity--to whom he may confide his
whole possessions, even his life and welfare." And again he said, "To
rise betimes, and to marry young, are what no man ever repents of
doing."

For a man to enjoy true repose and happiness in marriage, he must have
in his wife a soul-mate as well as a helpmate. But it is not requisite
that she should be merely a pale copy of himself. A man no more
desires in his wife a manly woman, than the woman desires in her
husband a feminine man. A woman's best qualities do not reside in her
intellect, but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her
sympathies, rather than by her knowledge. "The brain-women," says
Oliver Wendell Holmes, "never interest us like the heart-women." (5)
Men are often so wearied with themselves, that they are rather
predisposed to admire qualities and tastes in others different from
their own. "If I were suddenly asked," says Mr. Helps, "to give a
proof of the goodness of God to us, I think I should say that it is
most manifest in the exquisite difference He has made between the
souls of men and women, so as to create the possibility of the most
comforting and charming companionship that the mind of man can
imagine." (6) But though no man may love a woman for her
understanding, it is not the less necessary for her to cultivate it on
that account. (7) There may be difference in character, but there must
be harmony of mind and sentiment-- two intelligent souls as well as
two loving hearts:

"Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled
business of the world, Two in the liberal offices of life."

There are few men who have written so wisely on the subject of
marriage as Sir Henry Taylor. What he says about the influence of a
happy union in its relation to successful statesmanship, applies to
all conditions of life. The true wife, he says, should possess such
qualities as will tend to make home as much as may be a place of
repose. To this end, she should have sense enough or worth enough to
exempt her husband as much as possible from the troubles of family
management, and more especially from all possibility of debt. "She
should be pleasing to his eyes and to his taste: the taste goes deep
into the nature of all men--love is hardly apart from it; and in a
life of care and excitement, that home which is not the seat of love
cannot be a place of repose; rest for the brain, and peace for the
spirit, being only to be had through the softening of the affections.
He should look for a clear understanding, cheerfulness, and alacrity
of mind, rather than gaiety and brilliancy, and for a gentle
tenderness of disposition in preference to an impassioned nature.
Lively talents are too stimulating in a tired man's house--passion is
too disturbing....

"Her love should be A love that clings not, nor is exigent, Encumbers
not the active purposes, Nor drains their source; but profers with
free grace Pleasure at pleasure touched, at pleasure waived, A washing
of the weary traveller's feet, A quenching of his thirst, a sweet
repose, Alternate and preparative; in groves Where, loving much the
flower that loves the shade, And loving much the shade that that
flower loves, He yet is unbewildered, unenslaved, Thence starting
light, and pleasantly let go When serious service calls. (8)

Some persons are disappointed in marriage, because they expect too
much from it; but many more, because they do not bring into the co-
partnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindliness, forbearance,
and common sense. Their imagination has perhaps pictured a condition
never experienced on this side Heaven; and when real life comes, with
its troubles and cares, there is a sudden waking-up as from a dream.
Or they look for something approaching perfection in their chosen
companion, and discover by experience that the fairest of characters
have their weaknesses. Yet it is often the very imperfection of human
nature, rather than its perfection, that makes the strongest claims on
the forbearance and sympathy of others, and, in affectionate and
sensible natures, tends to produce the closest unions.

The golden rule of married life is, "Bear and forbear." Marriage, like
government, is a series of compromises. One must give and take,
refrain and restrain, endure and be patient. One may not be blind to
another's failings, but they may be borne with good- natured
forbearance. Of all qualities, good temper is the one that wears and
works the best in married life. Conjoined with self-control, it gives
patience--the patience to bear and forbear, to listen without retort,
to refrain until the angry flash has passed. How true it is in
marriage, that "the soft answer turneth away wrath!"

Burns the poet, in speaking of the qualities of a good wife, divided
them into ten parts. Four of these he gave to good temper, two to good
sense, one to wit, one to beauty--such as a sweet face, eloquent eyes,
a fine person, a graceful carriage; and the other two parts he divided
amongst the other qualities belonging to or attending on a wife--such
as fortune, connections, education (that is, of a higher standard than
ordinary), family blood, &c.; but he said: "Divide those two degrees
as you please, only remember that all these minor proportions must be
expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them that is
entitled to the dignity of an integer."

It has been said that girls are very good at making nets, but that it
would be better still if they would learn to make cages. Men are often
as easily caught as birds, but as difficult to keep. If the wife
cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the
cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place that her husband can find refuge
in--a retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world--then God
help the poor man, for he is virtually homeless!

No wise person will marry for beauty mainly. It may exercise a
powerful attraction in the first place, but it is found to be of
comparatively little consequence afterwards. Not that beauty of person
is to be underestimated, for, other things being equal, handsomeness
of form and beauty of features are the outward manifestations of
health. But to marry a handsome figure without character, fine
features unbeautified by sentiment or good-nature, is the most
deplorable of mistakes. As even the finest landscape, seen daily,
becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face, unless a
beautiful nature shines through it. The beauty of to-day becomes
commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most
ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this kind of
beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it.
After the first year, married people rarely think of each other's
features, and whether they be classically beautiful or otherwise. But
they never fail to be cognisant of each other's temper. "When I see a
man," says Addison, "with a sour rivelled face, I cannot forbear
pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance,
I think of the happiness of his friends, his family, and his
relations."

We have given the views of the poet Burns as to the qualities
necessary in a good wife. Let us add the advice given by Lord Burleigh
to his son, embodying the experience of a wise statesman and practised
man of the world. "When it shall please God," said he, "to bring thee
to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing
thy wife; for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil. And
it is an action of thy life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a
man can err but once.... Enquire diligently of her disposition, and
how her parents have been inclined in their youth. (9) Let her not be
poor, how generous (well-born) soever; for a man can buy nothing in
the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely creature
altogether for wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and
loathing in thee. Neither make choice of a dwarf, or a fool; for by
the one thou shalt beget a race of pigmies, while the other will be
thy continual disgrace, and it will yirke (irk) thee to hear her talk.
For thou shalt find it to thy great grief, that there is nothing more
fulsome (disgusting) than a she-fool."

A man's moral character is, necessarily, powerfully influenced by his
wife. A lower nature will drag him down, as a higher will lift him up.
The former will deaden his sympathies, dissipate his energies, and
distort his life; while the latter, by satisfying his affections, will
strengthen his moral nature, and by giving him repose, tend to
energise his intellect. Not only so, but a woman of high principles
will insensibly elevate the aims and purposes of her husband, as one
of low principles will unconsciously degrade them. De Tocqueville was
profoundly impressed by this truth. He entertained the opinion that
man could have no such mainstay in life as the companionship of a wife
of good temper and high principle. He says that in the course of his
life, he had seen even weak men display real public virtue, because
they had by their side a woman of noble character, who sustained them
in their career, and exercised a fortifying influence on their views
of public duty; whilst, on the contrary, he had still oftener seen men
of great and generous instincts transformed into vulgar self-seekers,
by contact with women of narrow natures, devoted to an imbecile love
of pleasure, and from whose minds the grand motive of Duty was
altogether absent.

De Tocqueville himself had the good fortune to be blessed with an
admirable wife: (10) and in his letters to his intimate friends, he
spoke most gratefully of the comfort and support he derived from her
sustaining courage, her equanimity of temper, and her nobility of
character. The more, indeed, that De Tocqueville saw of the world and
of practical life, the more convinced he became of the necessity of
healthy domestic conditions for a man's growth in virtue and goodness.
(11) Especially did he regard marriage as of inestimable importance in
regard to a man's true happiness; and he was accustomed to speak of
his own as the wisest action of his life. "Many external circumstances
of happiness," he said, "have been granted to me. But more than all, I
have to thank Heaven for having bestowed on me true domestic
happiness, the first of human blessings. As I grow older, the portion
of my life which in my youth I used to look down upon, every day
becomes more important in my eyes, and would now easily console me for
the loss of all the rest." And again, writing to his bosom-friend, De
Kergorlay, he said: "Of all the blessings which God has given to me,
the greatest of all in my eyes is to have lighted on Marie. You cannot
imagine what she is in great trials. Usually so gentle, she then
becomes strong and energetic. She watches me without my knowing it;
she softens, calms, and strengthens me in difficulties which disturb
ME, but leave her serene." (12) In another letter he says: "I cannot
describe to you the happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual
society of a woman in whose soul all that is good in your own is
reflected naturally, and even improved. When I say or do a thing which
seems to me to be perfectly right, I read immediately in Marie's
countenance an expression of proud satisfaction which elevates me. And
so, when my conscience reproaches me, her face instantly clouds over.
Although I have great power over her mind, I see with pleasure that
she awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now, I am sure that I
shall never allow myself to be drawn into anything that is wrong."

In the retired life which De Tocqueville led as a literary man--
political life being closed against him by the inflexible independence
of his character--his health failed, and he became ill, irritable, and
querulous. While proceeding with his last work, 'L'Ancien Regime et la
Revolution,' he wrote: "After sitting at my desk for five or six
hours, I can write no longer; the machine refuses to act. I am in
great want of rest, and of a long rest. If you add all the
perplexities that besiege an author towards the end of his work, you
will be able to imagine a very wretched life. I could not go on with
my task if it were not for the refreshing calm of Marie's
companionship. It would be impossible to find a disposition forming a
happier contrast to my own. In my perpetual irritability of body and
mind, she is a providential resource that never fails me." (13)

M. Guizot was, in like manner, sustained and encouraged, amidst his
many vicissitudes and disappointments, by his noble wife. If he was
treated with harshness by his political enemies, his consolation was
in the tender affection which filled his home with sunshine. Though
his public life was bracing and stimulating, he felt, nevertheless,
that it was cold and calculating, and neither filled the soul nor
elevated the character. "Man longs for a happiness," he says in his
'Memoires,' more complete and more tender than that which all the
labours and triumphs of active exertion and public importance can
bestow. What I know to-day, at the end of my race, I have felt when it
began, and during its continuance. Even in the midst of great
undertakings, domestic affections form the basis of life; and the most
brilliant career has only superficial and incomplete enjoyments, if a
stranger to the happy ties of family and friendship."

The circumstances connected with M. Guizot's courtship and marriage
are curious and interesting. While a young man living by his pen in
Paris, writing books, reviews, and translations, he formed a casual
acquaintance with Mademoiselle Pauline de Meulan, a lady of great
ability, then editor of the PUBLICISTE. A severe domestic calamity
having befallen her, she fell ill, and was unable for a time to carry
on the heavy literary work connected with her journal. At this
juncture a letter without any signature reached her one day, offering
a supply of articles, which the writer hoped would be worthy of the
reputation of the PUBLICISTE. The articles duly arrived, were
accepted, and published. They dealt with a great variety of subjects--
art, literature, theatricals, and general criticism. When the editor
at length recovered from her illness, the writer of the articles
disclosed himself: it was M. Guizot. An intimacy sprang up between
them, which ripened into mutual affection, and before long
Mademoiselle de Meulan became his wife.

From that time forward, she shared in all her husband's joys and

sorrows, as well as in many of his labours. Before they became united,
he asked her if she thought she should ever become dismayed at the
vicissitudes of his destiny, which he then saw looming before him. She
replied that he might assure himself that she would always
passionately enjoy his triumphs, but never heave a sigh over his
defeats. When M. Guizot became first minister of Louis Philippe, she
wrote to a friend: "I now see my husband much less than I desire, but
still I see him.... If God spares us to each other, I shall always be,
in the midst of every trial and apprehension, the happiest of beings."
Little more than six months after these words were written, the
devoted wife was laid in her grave; and her sorrowing husband was left
thenceforth to tread the journey of life alone.

Burke was especially happy in his union with Miss Nugent, a beautiful,
affectionate, and highminded woman. The agitation and anxiety of his
public life was more than compensated by his domestic happiness, which
seems to have been complete. It was a saying of Burke, thoroughly
illustrative of his character, that "to love the little platoon we
belong to in society is the germ of all public affections." His
description of his wife, in her youth, is probably one of the finest
word-portraits in the language:--

"She is handsome; but it is a beauty not arising from features, from
complexion, or from shape. She has all three in a high degree, but it
is not by these she touches the heart; it is all that sweetness of
temper, benevolence, innocence, and sensibility, which a face can
express, that forms her beauty. She has a face that just raises your
attention at first sight; it grows on you every moment, and you wonder
it did no more than raise your attention at first.

"Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases; they
command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by
virtue.

"Her stature is not tall; she is not made to be the admiration of
everybody, but the happiness of one.

"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy; she has all
the softness that does not imply weakness.

"Her voice is a soft low music--not formed to rule in public
assemblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a
crowd; it has this advantage--YOU MUST COME CLOSE TO HER TO HEAR IT.

"To describe her body describes her mind--one is the transcript of the
other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it
exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.

"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things,
as in avoiding such as she ought not to say or do.

"No person of so few years can know the world better; no person was
ever less corrupted by the knowledge of it.

"Her politeness flows rather from a natural disposition to oblige,
than from any rules on that subject, and therefore never fails to
strike those who understand good breeding and those who do not.

"She has a steady and firm mind, which takes no more from the solidity
of the female character than the solidity of marble does from its
polish and lustre. She has such virtues as make us value the truly
great of our own sex. She has all the winning graces that make us love
even the faults we see in the weak and beautiful, in hers."

Let us give, as a companion picture, the not less beautiful
delineation of a husband, that of Colonel Hutchinson, the Commonwealth
man, by his widow. Shortly before his death, he enjoined her "not to
grieve at the common rate of desolate women." And, faithful to his
injunction, instead of lamenting his loss, she indulged her noble
sorrow in depicting her husband as he had lived.

"They who dote on mortal excellences," she says, in her Introduction
to the 'Life,' "when, by the inevitable fate of all things frail,
their adored idols are taken from them, may let loose the winds of
passion to bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry away
the dear memory of what they have lost; and when comfort is essayed to
such mourners, commonly all objects are removed out of their view
which may with their remembrance renew the grief; and in time these
remedies succeed, and oblivion's curtain is by degrees drawn over the
dead face; and things less lovely are liked, while they are not viewed
together with that which was most excellent. But I, that am under a
command not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women, (14) while
I am studying which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to
augment my love, I can for the present find out none more just to your
dear father, nor consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his
memory, which I need not gild with such flattering commendations as
hired preachers do equally give to the truly and titularly honourable.
A naked undressed narrative, speaking the simple truth of him, will
deck him with more substantial glory, than all the panegyrics the best
pens could ever consecrate to the virtues of the best men."

The following is the wife's portrait of Colonel Hutchinson as a
husband:--

"For conjugal affection to his wife, it was such in him as whosoever
would draw out a rule of honour, kindness, and religion, to be
practised in that estate, need no more but exactly draw out his
example. Never man had a greater passion for a woman, nor a more
honourable esteem of a wife: yet he was not uxorious, nor remitted he
that just rule which it was her honour to obey, but managed the reins
of government with such prudence and affection, that she who could not
delight in such an honourable and advantageable subjection, must have
wanted a reasonable soul.

"He governed by persuasion, which he never employed but to things
honourable and profitable to herself; he loved her soul and her honour
more than her outside, and yet he had ever for her person a constant
indulgence, exceeding the common temporary passion of the most
uxorious fools. If he esteemed her at a higher rate than she in
herself could have deserved, he was the author of that virtue he
doated on, while she only reflected his own glories upon him. All that
she was, was HIM, while he was here, and all that she is now, at best,
is but his pale shade.

"So liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated
the mention of severed purses, his estate being so much at her
disposal that he never would receive an account of anything she
expended. So constant was he in his love, that when she ceased to be
young and lovely he began to show most fondness. He loved her at such
a kind and generous rate as words cannot express. Yet even this, which
was the highest love he or any man could have, was bounded by a
superior: he loved her in the Lord as his fellow-creature, not his
idol; but in such a manner as showed that an affection, founded on the
just rules of duty, far exceeds every way all the irregular passions
in the world. He loved God above her, and all the other dear pledges
of his heart, and for his glory cheerfully resigned them." (15)

Lady Rachel Russell is another of the women of history celebrated for
her devotion and faithfulness as a wife. She laboured and pleaded for
her husband's release so long as she could do so with honour; but when
she saw that all was in vain, she collected her courage, and strove by
her example to strengthen the resolution of her dear lord. And when
his last hour had nearly come, and his wife and children waited to
receive his parting embrace, she, brave to the end, that she might not
add to his distress, concealed the agony of her grief under a seeming
composure; and they parted, after a tender adieu, in silence. After
she had gone, Lord William said, "Now the bitterness of death is
passed!" (16)

We have spoken of the influence of a wife upon a man's character.
There are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower
character in a wife. If she do not sustain and elevate what is highest
in his nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own level. Thus a
wife may be the making or the unmaking of the best of men. An
illustration of this power is furnished in the life of Bunyan. The
profligate tinker had the good fortune to marry, in early life, a
worthy young woman of good parentage. "My mercy," he himself says,
"was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were accounted
godly. This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might
be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us
both), yet she had for her part, 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,'
and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he
died." And by reading these and other good books; helped by the kindly
influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil
ways, and led gently into the paths of peace.

Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, was far advanced in life
before he met the excellent woman who eventually became his wife. He
was too laboriously occupied in his vocation of minister to have any
time to spare for courtship; and his marriage was, as in the case of
Calvin, as much a matter of convenience as of love. Miss Charlton, the
lady of his choice, was the owner of property in her own right; but
lest it should be thought that Baxter married her for "covetousness,"
he requested, first, that she should give over to her relatives the
principal part of her fortune, and that "he should have nothing that
before her marriage was hers;" secondly, that she should so arrange
her affairs "as that he might be entangled in no lawsuits;" and,
thirdly, "that she should expect none of the time that his ministerial
work might require." These several conditions the bride having
complied with, the marriage took place, and proved a happy one. "We
lived," said Baxter, "in inviolated love and mutual complacency,
sensible of the benefit of mutual help, nearly nineteen years." Yet
the life of Baxter was one of great trials and troubles, arising from
the unsettled state of the times in which he lived. He was hunted
about from one part of the country to another, and for several years
he had no settled dwelling-place. "The women, he gently remarks in his
'Life,' "have most of that sort of trouble, but my wife easily bore it
all." In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the
magistrates at Brentford, for holding a conventicle at Acton, and was
sentenced by them to be imprisoned in Clerkenwell Gaol. There he was
joined by his wife, who affectionately nursed him during his
confinement. "She was never so cheerful a companion to me," he says,
"as in prison, and was very much against me seeking to be released."
At length he was set at liberty by the judges of the Court of Common
Pleas, to whom he had appealed against the sentence of the
magistrates. At the death of Mrs. Baxter, after a very troubled yet
happy and cheerful life, her husband left a touching portrait of the
graces, virtues, and Christian character of this excellent woman--one
of the most charming things to be found in his works.

The noble Count Zinzendorf was united to an equally noble woman, who
bore him up through life by her great spirit, and sustained him in all
his labours by her unfailing courage. "Twenty-four years' experience
has shown me," he said, "that just the helpmate whom I have is the
only one that could suit my vocation. Who else could have so carried
through my family affairs?--who lived so spotlessly before the world?
Who so wisely aided me in my rejection of a dry morality?.... Who
would, like she, without a murmur, have seen her husband encounter
such dangers by land and sea?--who undertaken with him, and sustained,
such astonishing pilgrimages? Who, amid such difficulties, could have
held up her head and supported me?.... And finally, who, of all human
beings, could so well understand and interpret to others my inner and
outer being as this one, of such nobleness in her way of thinking,
such great intellectual capacity, and free from the theological
perplexities that so often enveloped me?

One of the brave Dr. Livingstone's greatest trials during his travels
in South Africa was the death of his affectionate wife, who had shared
his dangers, and accompanied him in so many of his wanderings. In
communicating the intelligence of her decease at Shupanga, on the
River Zambesi, to his friend Sir Roderick Murchison, Dr. Livingstone
said: "I must confess that this heavy stroke quite takes the heart out
of me. Everything else that has happened only made me more determined
to overcome all difficulties; but after this sad stroke I feel crushed
and void of strength. Only three short months of her society, after
four years separation! I married her for love, and the longer I lived
with her I loved her the more. A good wife, and a good, brave,
kindhearted mother was she, deserving all the praises you bestowed
upon her at our parting dinner, for teaching her own and the native
children, too, at Kolobeng. I try to bow to the blow as from our
Heavenly Father, who orders all things for us.... I shall do my duty
still, but it is with a darkened horizon that I again set about it."

Sir Samuel Romilly left behind him, in his Autobiography, a touching
picture of his wife, to whom he attributed no small measure of the
success and happiness that accompanied him through life. "For the last
fifteen years," he said, "my happiness has been the constant study of
the most excellent of wives: a woman in whom a strong understanding,
the noblest and most elevated sentiments, and the most courageous
virtue, are united to the warmest affection, and to the utmost
delicacy of mind and heart; and all these intellectual perfections are
graced by the most splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld." (17)
Romilly's affection and admiration for this noble woman endured to the
end; and when she died, the shock proved greater than his sensitive
nature could bear. Sleep left his eyelids, his mind became unhinged,
and three days after her death the sad event occurred which brought
his own valued life to a close. (18)

Sir Francis Burdett, to whom Romilly had been often politically
opposed, fell into such a state of profound melancholy on the death of
his wife, that he persistently refused nourishment of any kind, and
died before the removal of her remains from the house; and husband and
wife were laid side by side in the same grave.

It was grief for the loss of his wife that sent Sir Thomas Graham into
the army at the age of forty-three. Every one knows the picture of the
newly-wedded pair by Gainsborough--one of the most exquisite of that
painter's works. They lived happily together for eighteen years, and
then she died, leaving him inconsolable. To forget his sorrow--and, as
some thought, to get rid of the weariness of his life without her--
Graham joined Lord Hood as a volunteer, and distinguished himself by
the recklessness of his bravery at the siege of Toulon. He served all
through the Peninsular War, first under Sir John Moore, and afterwards
under Wellington; rising through the various grades of the service,
until he rose to be second in command. He was commonly known as the
"hero of Barossa," because of his famous victory at that place; and he
was eventually raised to the peerage as Lord Lynedoch, ending his days
peacefully at a very advanced age. But to the last he tenderly
cherished the memory of his dead wife, to the love of whom he may be
said to have owed all his glory. "Never," said Sheridan of him, when
pronouncing his eulogy in the House of Commons--"never was there
seated a loftier spirit in a braver heart."

And so have noble wives cherished the memory of their husbands. There
is a celebrated monument in Vienna, erected to the memory of one of
the best generals of the Austrian army, on which there is an
inscription, setting forth his great services during the Seven Years'
War, concluding with the words, "NON PATRIA, NEC IMPERATOR, SED CONJUX
POSUIT." When Sir Albert Morton died, his wife's grief was such that
she shortly followed him, and was laid by his side. Wotton's two lines
on the event have been celebrated as containing a volume in seventeen
words:

"He first deceased; she for a little tried To live without him, liked
it not, and died."

So, when Washington's wife was informed that her dear lord had
suffered his last agony--had drawn his last breath, and departed --she
said: "'Tis well; all is now over. I shall soon follow him; I have no
more trials to pass through."

Not only have women been the best companions, friends, and consolers,
but they have in many cases been the most effective helpers of their
husbands in their special lines of work. Galvani was especially happy
in his wife. She was the daughter of Professor Galeazzi; and it is
said to have been through her quick observation of the circumstance of
the leg of a frog, placed near an electrical machine, becoming
convulsed when touched by a knife, that her husband was first led to
investigate the science which has since become identified with his
name. Lavoisier's wife also was a woman of real scientific ability,
who not only shared in her husband's pursuits, but even undertook the
task of engraving the plates that accompanied his 'Elements.'

The late Dr. Buckland had another true helper in his wife, who
assisted him with her pen, prepared and mended his fossils, and
furnished many of the drawings and illustrations of his published
works. "Notwithstanding her devotion to her husband's pursuits," says
her son, Frank Buckland, in the preface to one of his father's works,
"she did not neglect the education of her children, but occupied her
mornings in superintending their instruction in sound and useful
knowledge. The sterling value of her labours they now, in after-life,
fully appreciate, and feel most thankful that they were blessed with
so good a mother." (19)

A still more remarkable instance of helpfulness in a wife is presented
in the case of Huber, the Geneva naturalist. Huber was blind from his
seventeenth year, and yet he found means to study and master a branch
of natural history demanding the closest observation and the keenest
eyesight. It was through the eyes of his wife that his mind worked as
if they had been his own. She encouraged her husband's studies as a
means of alleviating his privation, which at length he came to forget;
and his life was as prolonged and happy as is usual with most
naturalists. He even went so far as to declare that he should be
miserable were he to regain his eyesight. "I should not know," he
said, "to what extent a person in my situation could be beloved;
besides, to me my wife is always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no
light matter." Huber's great work on 'Bees' is still regarded as a
masterpiece, embodying a vast amount of original observation on their
habits and natural history. Indeed, while reading his descriptions,
one would suppose that they were the work of a singularly keensighted
man, rather than of one who had been entirely blind for twenty-five
years at the time at which he wrote them.

Not less touching was the devotion of Lady Hamilton to the service of
her husband, the late Sir William Hamilton, Professor of Logic and
Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. After he had been stricken
by paralysis through overwork at the age of fifty-six, she became
hands, eyes, mind, and everything to him. She identified herself with
his work, read and consulted books for him, copied out and corrected
his lectures, and relieved him of all business which she felt herself
competent to undertake. Indeed, her conduct as a wife was nothing
short of heroic; and it is probable that but for her devoted and more
than wifely help, and her rare practical ability, the greatest of her
husband's works would never have seen the light. He was by nature
unmethodical and disorderly, and she supplied him with method and
orderliness. His temperament was studious but indolent, while she was
active and energetic. She abounded in the qualities which he most
lacked. He had the genius, to which her vigorous nature gave the force
and impulse.

When Sir William Hamilton was elected to his Professorship, after a
severe and even bitter contest, his opponents, professing to regard
him as a visionary, predicted that he could never teach a class of
students, and that his appointment would prove a total failure. He
determined, with the help of his wife, to justify the choice of his
supporters, and to prove that his enemies were false prophets. Having
no stock of lectures on hand, each lecture of the first course was
written out day by day, as it was to be delivered on the following
morning. His wife sat up with him night after night, to write out a
fair copy of the lectures from the rough sheets, which he drafted in
the adjoining room. "On some occasions," says his biographer, "the
subject of the lectures would prove less easily managed than on
others; and then Sir William would be found writing as late as nine
o'clock in the morning, while his faithful but wearied amanuensis had
fallen asleep on a sofa." (20)

Sometimes the finishing touches to the lecture were left to be given
just before the class-hour. Thus helped, Sir William completed his
course; his reputation as a lecturer was established; and he
eventually became recognised throughout Europe as one of the leading
intellects of his time. (21)

The woman who soothes anxiety by her presence, who charms and allays
irritability by her sweetness of temper, is a consoler as well as a
true helper. Niebuhr always spoke of his wife as a fellow-worker with
him in this sense. Without the peace and consolation which be found in
her society, his nature would have fretted in comparative uselessness.
"Her sweetness of temper and her love," said he, "raise me above the
earth, and in a manner separate me from this life." But she was a
helper in another and more direct way. Niebuhr was accustomed to
discuss with his wife every historical discovery, every political
event, every novelty in literature; and it was mainly for her pleasure
and approbation, in the first instance, that he laboured while
preparing himself for the instruction of the world at large.

The wife of John Stuart Mill was another worthy helper of her husband,
though in a more abstruse department of study, as we learn from his
touching dedication of the treatise 'On Liberty':-- "To the beloved
and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the
author, of all that is best in my writings--the friend and wife, whose
exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and
whose approbation was my chief reward, I dedicate this volume." Not
less touching is the testimony borne by another great living writer to
the character of his wife, in the inscription upon the tombstone of
Mrs. Carlyle in Haddington Churchyard, where are inscribed these
words:- "In her bright existence, she had more sorrows than are
common, but also a soft amiability, a capacity of discernment, and a
noble loyalty of heart, which are rare. For forty years she was the
true and loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and word
unweariedly forwarded him as none else could, in all of worthy that he
did or attempted"

The married life of Faraday was eminently happy. In his wife he found,
at the same time, a true helpmate and soul-mate. She supported,
cheered, and strengthened him on his way through life, giving him "the
clear contentment of a heart at ease." In his diary he speaks of his
marriage as "a source of honour and happiness far exceeding all the
rest." After twentyeight years' experience, he spoke of it as "an
event which, more than any other, had contributed to his earthly
happiness and healthy state of mind.... The union (said he) has in
nowise changed, except only in the depth and strength of its
character." And for six- and-forty years did the union continue
unbroken; the love of the old man remaining as fresh, as earnest, as
heart-whole, as in the days of his impetuous youth. In this case,
marriage was as--

"A golden chain let down from heaven, Whose links are bright and even;
That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines The soft and sweetest
minds In equal knots."

Besides being a helper, woman is emphatically a consoler. Her sympathy
is unfailing. She soothes, cheers, and comforts. Never was this more
true than in the case of the wife of Tom Hood, whose tender devotion
to him, during a life that was a prolonged illness, is one of the most
affecting things in biography. A woman of excellent good sense, she
appreciated her husband's genius, and, by encouragement and sympathy,
cheered and heartened him to renewed effort in many a weary struggle
for life. She created about him an atmosphere of hope and
cheerfulness, and nowhere did the sunshine of her love seem so bright
as when lighting up the couch of her invalid husband.

Nor was he unconscious of her worth. In one of his letters to her,
when absent from his side, Hood said: "I never was anything, Dearest,
till I knew you; and I have been a better, happier, and more
prosperous man ever since. Lay by that truth in lavender, Sweetest,
and remind me of it when I fail. I am writing warmly and fondly, but
not without good cause. First, your own affectionate letter, lately
received; next, the remembrance of our dear children, pledges--what
darling ones!--of our old familiar love; then, a delicious impulse to
pour out the overflowings of my heart into yours; and last, not least,
the knowledge that your dear eyes will read what my hand is now
writing. Perhaps there is an afterthought that, whatever may befall
me, the wife of my bosom will have the acknowledgment of her
tenderness, worth, excellence --all that is wifely or womanly, from my
pen." In another letter, also written to his wife during a brief
absence, there is a natural touch, showing his deep affection for her:
"I went and retraced our walk in the park, and sat down on the same
seat, and felt happier and better."

But not only was Mrs. Hood a consoler, she was also a helper of her
husband in his special work. He had such confidence in her judgment,
that he read, and re-read, and corrected with her assistance all that
he wrote. Many of his pieces were first dedicated to her; and her
ready memory often supplied him with the necessary references and
quotations. Thus, in the roll of noble wives of men of genius, Mrs.
Hood will always be entitled to take a foremost place.

Not less effective as a literary helper was Lady Napier, the wife of
Sir William Napier, historian of the Peninsular War. She encouraged
him to undertake the work, and without her help he would have
experienced great difficulty in completing it. She translated and
epitomized the immense mass of original documents, many of them in
cipher, on which it was in a great measure founded. When the Duke of
Wellington was told of the art and industry she had displayed in
deciphering King Joseph's portfolio, and the immense mass of
correspondence taken at Vittoria, he at first would hardly believe it,
adding--"I would have given 20,000L. to any person who could have done
this for me in the Peninsula." Sir William Napier's handwriting being
almost illegible, Lady Napier made out his rough interlined
manuscript, which he himself could scarcely read, and wrote out a full
fair copy for the printer; and all this vast labour she undertook and
accomplished, according to the testimony of her husband, without
having for a moment neglected the care and education of a large
family. When Sir William lay on his deathbed, Lady Napier was at the
same time dangerously ill; but she was wheeled into his room on a
sofa, and the two took their silent farewell of each other. The
husband died first; in a few weeks the wife followed him, and they
sleep side by side in the same grave.

Many other similar truehearted wives rise up in the memory, to recite
whose praises would more than fill up our remaining space-- such as
Flaxman's wife, Ann Denham, who cheered and encouraged her husband
through life in the prosecution of his art, accompanying him to Rome,
sharing in his labours and anxieties, and finally in his triumphs, and
to whom Flaxman, in the fortieth year of their married life, dedicated
his beautiful designs illustrative of Faith, Hope, and Charity, in
token of his deep and undimmed affection;--such as Katherine Boutcher,
"dark-eyed Kate," the wife of William Blake, who believed her husband
to be the first genius on earth, worked off the impressions of his
plates and coloured them beautifully with her own hand, bore with him
in all his erratic ways, sympathised with him in his sorrows and joys
for forty-five years, and comforted him until his dying hour--his last
sketch, made in his seventy-first year, being a likeness of himself,
before making which, seeing his wife crying by his side, he said,
"Stay, Kate! just keep as you are; I will draw your portrait, for you
have ever been an angel to me;"--such again as Lady Franklin, the true
and noble woman, who never rested in her endeavours to penetrate the
secret of the Polar Sea and prosecute the search for her long-lost
husband--undaunted by failure, and persevering in her determination
with a devotion and singleness of purpose altogether unparalleled;--or
such again as the wife of Zimmermann, whose intense melancholy she
strove in vain to assuage, sympathizing with him, listening to him,
and endeavouring to understand him--and to whom, when on her deathbed,
about to leave him for ever, she addressed the touching words, "My
poor Zimmermann! who will now understand thee?"

Wives have actively helped their husbands in other ways. Before
Weinsberg surrendered to its besiegers, the women of the place asked
permission of the captors to remove their valuables. The permission
was granted, and shortly after, the women were seen issuing from the
gates carrying their husbands on their shoulders. Lord Nithsdale owed
his escape from prison to the address of his wife, who changed
garments with him, sending him forth in her stead, and herself
remaining prisoner,--an example which was successfully repeated by
Madame de Lavalette.

But the most remarkable instance of the release of a husband through
the devotion of a wife, was that of the celebrated Grotius. He had
lain for nearly twenty months in the strong fortress of Loevestein,
near Gorcum, having been condemned by the government of the United
Provinces to perpetual imprisonment. His wife, having been allowed to
share his cell, greatly relieved his solitude. She was permitted to go
into the town twice a week, and bring her husband books, of which he
required a large number to enable him to prosecute his studies. At
length a large chest was required to hold them. This the sentries at
first examined with great strictness, but, finding that it only
contained books (amongst others Arminian books) and linen, they at
length gave up the search, and it was allowed to pass out and in as a
matter of course. This led Grotius' wife to conceive the idea of
releasing him; and she persuaded him one day to deposit himself in the
chest instead of the outgoing books. When the two soldiers appointed
to remove it took it up, they felt it to be considerably heavier than
usual, and one of them asked, jestingly, "Have we got the Arminian
himself here?" to which the ready-witted wife replied, "Yes, perhaps
some Arminian books." The chest reached Gorcum in safety; the captive
was released; and Grotius escaped across the frontier into Brabant,
and afterwards into France, where he was rejoined by his wife.

Trial and suffering are the tests of married life. They bring out the
real character, and often tend to produce the closest union. They may
even be the spring of the purest happiness. Uninterrupted joy, like
uninterrupted success, is not good for either man or woman. When
Heine's wife died, he began to reflect upon the loss he had sustained.
They had both known poverty, and struggled through it hand-in-hand;
and it was his greatest sorrow that she was taken from him at the
moment when fortune was beginning to smile upon him, but too late for
her to share in his prosperity. "Alas I" said he, "amongst my griefs
must I reckon even her love--the strongest, truest, that ever inspired
the heart of woman--which made me the happiest of mortals, and yet was
to me a fountain of a thousand distresses, inquietudes, and cares? To
entire cheerfulness, perhaps, she never attained; but for what
unspeakable sweetness, what exalted, enrapturing joys, is not love
indebted to sorrow! Amidst growing anxieties, with the torture of
anguish in my heart, I have been made, even by the loss which caused
me this anguish and these anxieties, inexpressibly happy! When tears
flowed over our cheeks, did not a nameless, seldom-felt delight stream
through my breast, oppressed equally by joy and sorrow!"

There is a degree of sentiment in German love which seems strange to
English readers,--such as we find depicted in the lives of Novalis,
Jung Stilling, Fichte, Jean Paul, and others that might be named. The
German betrothal is a ceremony of almost equal importance to the
marriage itself; and in that state the sentiments are allowed free
play, whilst English lovers are restrained, shy, and as if ashamed of
their feelings. Take, for instance, the case of Herder, whom his
future wife first saw in the pulpit. "I heard," she says, "the voice
of an angel, and soul's words such as I had never heard before. In the
afternoon I saw him, and stammered out my thanks to him; from this
time forth our souls were one." They were betrothed long before their
means would permit them to marry; but at length they were united. "We
were married," says Caroline, the wife, "by the rose-light of a
beautiful evening. We were one heart, one soul." Herder was equally
ecstatic in his language. "I have a wife," he wrote to Jacobi, "that
is the tree, the consolation, and the happiness of my life. Even in
flying transient thoughts (which often surprise us), we are one!"

Take, again, the case of Fichte, in whose history his courtship and
marriage form a beautiful episode. He was a poor German student,
living with a family at Zurich in the capacity of tutor, when he first
made the acquaintance of Johanna Maria Hahn, a niece of Klopstock. Her
position in life was higher than that of Fichte; nevertheless, she
regarded him with sincere admiration. When Fichte was about to leave
Zurich, his troth plighted to her, she, knowing him to be very poor,
offered him a gift of money before setting out. He was inexpressibly
hurt by the offer, and, at first, even doubted whether she could
really love him; but, on second thoughts, he wrote to her, expressing
his deep thanks, but, at the same time, the impossibility of his
accepting such a gift from her. He succeeded in reaching his
destination, though entirely destitute of means. After a long and hard
struggle with the world, extending over many years, Fichte was at
length earning money enough to enable him to marry. In one of his
charming letters to his betrothed he said:--"And so, dearest, I
solemnly devote myself to thee, and thank thee that thou hast thought
me not unworthy to be thy companion on the journey of life.... There
is no land of happiness here below--I know it now--but a land of toil,
where every joy but strengthens us for greater labour. Hand-in-hand we
shall traverse it, and encourage and strengthen each other, until our
spirits--oh, may it be together!--shall rise to the eternal fountain
of all peace."

The married life of Fichte was very happy. His wife proved a true and
highminded helpmate. During the War of Liberation she was assiduous in
her attention to the wounded in the hospitals, where she caught a
malignant fever, which nearly carried her off. Fichte himself caught
the same disease, and was for a time completely prostrated; but he
lived for a few more years and died at the early age of fifty-two,
consumed by his own fire.

What a contrast does the courtship and married life of the blunt and
practical William Cobbett present to the aesthetical and sentimental
love of these highly refined Germans! Not less honest, not less true,
but, as some would think, comparatively coarse and vulgar. When he
first set eyes upon the girl that was afterwards to become his wife,
she was only thirteen years old, and he was twenty-one--a sergeant-
major in a foot regiment stationed at St. John's in New Brunswick. He
was passing the door of her father's house one day in winter, and saw
the girl out in the snow, scrubbing a washing-tub. He said at once to
himself, "That's the girl for me." He made her acquaintance, and
resolved that she should be his wife so soon as he could get
discharged from the army.

On the eve of the girl's return to Woolwich with her father, who was a
sergeant-major in the artillery, Cobbett sent her a hundred and fifty
guineas which he had saved, in order that she might be able to live
without hard work until his return to England. The girl departed,
taking with her the money; and five years later Cobbett obtained his
discharge. On reaching London, he made haste to call upon the sergeant-
major's daughter. "I found," he says, "my little girl a servant-of-all-
work (and hard work it was), at five pounds a year, in the house of a
Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter,
she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas,
unbroken." Admiration of her conduct was now added to love of her
person, and Cobbett shortly after married the girl, who proved an
excellent wife. He was, indeed, never tired of speaking her praises,
and it was his pride to attribute to her all the comfort and much of
the success of his after-life.

Though Cobbett was regarded by many in his lifetime as a coarse, hard,
practical man, full of prejudices, there was yet a strong undercurrent
of poetry in his nature; and, while he declaimed against sentiment,
there were few men more thoroughly imbued with sentiment of the best
kind. He had the tenderest regard for the character of woman. He
respected her purity and her virtue, and in his 'Advice to Young Men,'
he has painted the true womanly woman--the helpful, cheerful,
affectionate wife--with a vividness and brightness, and, at the same
time, a force of good sense, that has never been surpassed by any
English writer. Cobbett was anything but refined, in the conventional
sense of the word; but he was pure, temperate, self-denying,
industrious, vigorous, and energetic, in an eminent degree. Many of
his views were, no doubt, wrong, but they were his own, for he
insisted on thinking for himself in everything. Though few men took a
firmer grasp of the real than he did, perhaps still fewer were more
swayed by the ideal. In word-pictures of his own emotions, he is
unsurpassed. Indeed, Cobbett might almost be regarded as one of the
greatest prose poets of English real life.

NOTES

(1) Mungo Park declared that he was more affected by this incident
than by any other that befel him in the course of his travels. As he
lay down to sleep on the mat spread for him on the floor of the hut,
his benefactress called to the female part of the family to resume
their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued employed far
into the night. "They lightened their labour with songs," says the
traveller, "one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the
subject of it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining
in a chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally
translated, were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell. The
poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has
no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus--'Let
us pity the white man, no mother has he!' Trifling as this recital may
appear, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in
the highest degree. I was so oppressed by such unexpected kindness,
that sleep fled before my eyes."

(2)'Transformation, or Monte Beni.'

(3) 'Portraits Contemporains,' iii. 519.

(4) Mr. Arthur Helps, in one of his Essays, has wisely said: "You
observe a man becoming day by day richer, or advancing in station, or
increasing in professional reputation, and you set him down as a
successful man in life. But if his home is an ill-regulated one, where
no links of affection extend throughout the family-- whose former
domestics (and he has had more of them than he can well remember) look
back upon their sojourn with him as one unblessed by kind words or
deeds--I contend that that man has not been successful. Whatever good
fortune he may have in the world, it is to be remembered that he has
always left one important fortress untaken behind him. That man's life
does not surely read well whose benevolence has found no central home.
It may have sent forth rays in various directions, but there should
have been a warm focus of love--that home-nest which is formed round a
good mans heart."--CLAIMS OF LABOUR.

(5) "The red heart sends all its instincts up to the white brain, to
be analysed, chilled, blanched, and so become pure reason--which is
just exactly what we do NOT want of women as women. The current should
run the other way. The nice, calm, cold thought, which, in women,
shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly know it as thought, should
always travel to the lips VIA the heart. It does so in those women
whom all love and admire.... The brain-women never interest us like
the heart-women; white roses please less than red."--THE PROFESSOR AT
THE BREAKFAST TABLE, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

(6) 'The War and General Culture,' 1871.

(7) "Depend upon it, men set more value on the cultivated minds than
on the accomplishments of women, which they are rarely able to
appreciate. It is a common error, but it is an error, that literature
unfits women for the everyday business of life. It is not so with men.
You see those of the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their
time and attention to the most homely objects. Literature gives women
a real and proper weight in society, but then they must use it with
discretion." --THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.

(8) 'The Statesman,' pp. 73-75.

(9) Fuller, the Church historian, with his usual homely mother-wit,
speaking of the choice of a wife, said briefly, "Take the daughter of
a good mother."

(10) She was an Englishwoman--a Miss Motley. It maybe mentioned that
amongst other distinguished Frenchmen who have married English wives,
were Sismondi, Alfred de Vigny, and Lamartine.

(11) "Plus je roule dans ce monde, et plus je suis amene a penser
qu'il n'y a que le bonheur domestique qui signifie quelque chose." --
OEUVRES ET CORRESPONDENCE.

(12) De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. i. p. 408.

(13) De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. ii. p. 48.

(14) Colonel Hutchinson was an uncompromising republican, thoroughly
brave, highminded, and pious. At the Restoration, he was discharged
from Parliament, and from all offices of state for ever. He retired to
his estate at Owthorp, near Nottingham, but was shortly after arrested
and imprisoned in the Tower. From thence he was removed to Sandown
Castle, near Deal, where he lay for eleven months, and died on
September 11th, 1664. The wife petitioned for leave to share his
prison, but was refused. When he felt himself dying, knowing the deep
sorrow which his death would occasion to his wife, he left this
message, which was conveyed to her: "Let her, as she is above other
women, show herself on this occasion a good Christian, and above the
pitch of ordinary women." Hence the wife's allusion to her husband's
"command" in the above passage.

(15) Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson to her children concerning their father:
'Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson' (Bohn's Ed.), pp. 29-30.

(16) On the Declaration of American Independence, the first John
Adams, afterwards President of the United States, bought a copy of the
'Life and Letters of Lady Russell,' and presented it to his wife,
"with an express intent and desire" (as stated by himself), "that she
should consider it a mirror in which to contemplate herself; for, at
that time, I thought it extremely probable, from the daring and
dangerous career I was determined to run, that she would one day find
herself in the situation of Lady Russell, her husband without a head:"
Speaking of his wife in connection with the fact, Mr. Adams added:
"Like Lady Russell, she never, by word or look, discouraged me from
running all hazards for the salvation of my country's liberties. She
was willing to share with me, and that her children should share with
us both, in all the dangerous consequences we had to hazard."

(17) 'Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romily,' vol. i. p. 41.

(18) It is a singular circumstance that in the parish church of St.
Bride, Fleet Street, there is a tablet on the wall with an inscription
to the memory of Isaac Romilly, F.R.S., who died in 1759, of a broken
heart, seven days after the decease of a beloved wife--CHAMBERS' BOOK
OF DAYS, vol. ii. p. 539.

(19) Mr. Frank Buckland says "During the long period that Dr. Buckland
was engaged in writing the book which I now have the honour of
editing, my mother sat up night after night, for weeks and months
consecutively, writing to my father's dictation; and this often till
the sun's rays, shining through the shutters at early morn, warned the
husband to cease from thinking, and the wife to rest her weary hand.
Not only with her pen did she render material assistance, but her
natural talent in the use of her pencil enabled her to give accurate
illustrations and finished drawings, many of which are perpetuated in
Dr. Buckland's works. She was also particularly clever and neat in
mending broken fossils; and there are many specimens in the Oxford
Museum, now exhibiting their natural forms and beauty, which were
restored by her perseverance to shape from a mass of broken and almost
comminuted fragments."

(20) Veitch's 'Memoirs of Sir William Hamilton.'

(21) The following extract from Mr. Veitch's biography will give one
an idea of the extraordinary labours of Lady Hamilton, to whose
unfailing devotion to the service of her husband the world of
intellect has been so much indebted: "The number of pages in her
handwriting," says Mr. Veitch,--"filled with abstruse metaphysical
matter, original and quoted, bristling with proportional and
syllogistic formulae--that are still preserved, is perfectly
marvellous. Everything that was sent to the press, and all the courses
of lectures, were written by her, either to dictation, or from a copy.
This work she did in the truest spirit of love and devotion. She had a
power, moreover, of keeping her husband up to what he had to do. She
contended wisely against a sort of energetic indolence which
characterised him, and which, while he was always labouring, made him
apt to put aside the task actually before him--sometimes diverted by
subjects of inquiry suggested in the course of study on the matter in
hand, sometimes discouraged by the difficulty of reducing to order the
immense mass of materials he had accumulated in connection with it.
Then her resolution and cheerful disposition sustained and refreshed
him, and never more so than when, during the last twelve years of his
life, his bodily strength was broken, and his spirit, though languid,
yet ceased not from mental toil. The truth is, that Sir William's
marriage, his comparatively limited circumstances, and the character
of his wife, supplied to a nature that would have been contented to
spend its mighty energies in work that brought no reward but in the
doing of it, and that might never have been made publicly known or
available, the practical force and impulse which enabled him to
accomplish what he actually did in literature and philosophy. It was
this influence, without doubt, which saved him from utter absorption
in his world of rare, noble, and elevated, but ever-increasingly
unattainable ideas. But for it, the serene sea of abstract thought
might have held him becalmed for life; and in the absence of all
utterance of definite knowledge of his conclusions, the world might
have been left to an ignorant and mysterious wonder about the
unprofitable scholar."

.

---

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