American Republican and Baltimore daily clipper. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1844-1846, 1846-07-29
For some time an unhappy sort of life,

Wishing each other, not divorced, but Dead
They lived respectfully as man and wife"
We are doing injustice to the gentleman, we
fear, in saying that he wished his wife dead; for
transgressons must indeedbe carried far--they
must be plain and pal pable-when they turn to
hate the better and more early formed feelings
of the soul. That she wished him in that land
where ''the wicked cease from troubling, and
the weary are at rest" all who travel with us
to the termination of our brief but authentic
tale, will, we believe, agree.
Sometime in the year '42 the lady felt or
feigned sickness She felt, she said, the attacks
of the premonitory symptoms of consump-
ton. Phantoms Of an early grave-of parting
with a dear daughter and husband, whose
lineaments of look that daughter bore-flitted
before her! The physician recommended change
of scene; the indulgent husband at once assent
ed, and the supposed-to-b e-consumpt mother
and the beloved daugher were pat on board a
steamboat cup for a western city," where the
family or friends of the lady resided
After being there a reasonable length Of time
"a time sufficiently long for her recovery by
due care, or for her death according to the usu-
al inroads of the malady on female constitu-
ton, the husband received letter. 1t was a
large letter with a black margin and black
seal. 1t had death in its very look, and true to
its look--the death of his wife--of the mother
of his child-was the burden of its contents
Anticipating its melancholy intelligence he
broke its black seal, and as he read the record
of the last moments of her whom only in life
he loved, tears covered the sheet and well-nigh
obiiterated the writing. Nor did The writer, a
near relative of the assumed to- be deceased
wife, content himself with mere recital of the
melancholy facts of her demise; he enclosed
the hills of the two Dlvspiau nc uho attondad
her during her sickness; of the apothecary who
furnished the medicines, and of the undertaken
who supplied the hearse that carried the body
to the gravel
These were all incidental expenses they
. were all which it behooved husband to dis
charge, and honorably did he discharge them
He put ON the usual sombre suit of mourning,
which, by the way, he wore till within few
aays-till the denouement of the drama. He
then felt the loneliness of his position, though
in the midst, as it were, of millions of human
beings. The wife of his bosom was, as he be-
lieved, "gone to that bourne from whence no
traveller retarns"-his only child was in DIS
tant city--and he felt truly desoate. The child
was not very long absent from him, however,
Her mother was dead! and it was deemed that
her father was the proper party TO look TO her.
A letter was written informing him that she
would. be down On the steamboat---on such
day, and on that day she was down. Long
before the boat touched the shore the fond faith
or was In waiting, and in the little mourning
clad stranger who stood on the deck, he beheld
his mother-depriyed daughter. His embrace,
as soon as lie could get on board, was such as
only father can give to his child. Soon after
he questioned her Of her mothers last illness
her tying moments-her death-her burial