The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-03-14

for twenty years. Occasionally, when
he appeared more rational and quiet
than usual, he would be brought home;
for it was exceedingly painful to Mrs.
Clay to Danish the afflicted child from
her house. We have letter from one
of the sons to his father, which shows
how much the family endured before
they would consent to removal:
'Theodore endangered the lives of
all in the house with him. He was
worse than he ever had been. To look
at him was enough to melt the heart.
His health wasting away, his face pale
and emaciated. The day exhausted in
forming suspicious of plots and CON
spiracies, the night in useless and terri
BILE alarms. Let me say with a full
knowledge of what I owe to you and to
my mother, that we should allow the
best physicians to operate with the most
subtle and distressing disorder. When
he was in the hospital before, his health
was re-established, and his mind GER
tainly improved. Let us then curb our
feelings, and not destroy our brother
and our child by mistimed affection"
The young man continues at great
length to argue the point with his pa
rents, and to excuse the sending away
of the maniac during their absence.
Mr.. Clay's second son, upon attaining
manhood, entered into the manufacture
of hempen goods. The fourth son,
Horny Clay, Jr., graduated second in
his class at West Point, and fell ut the
battle of Buena Vista. The two young
CT sons embraced the profession of the
law.
Occasionally, during the long public
life of Henry Clay, his wife accompanied
him to Washington; and, during the
four years of his holding the office of
secretary of state, under John Quincy
Adams, she passed much of her time at
the capital. She was living there when
her husband fought his celebrated duel
with John Randolph, and although
more than week elapsed between the
challenge and the encounter, and the
secret was known to many persons, she
remained ignorant of it to the last.
One of the persons who knew what was
impending was Col. Benton, of Missouri.
The eccentric Randolp phi came into his
room one day, and abruptly said:
care you blood relation of Mrs.
Clay?"
81 am" said Col. Benton.
Randolph then said that that put an
end to q request which he wished to
make Of him, which was that he should
be his second in a duel with Henry Clay.
Col. Benton, in his Memoirs, gives us a
glimpse of the family scene the evening
before the duel, after all efforts to pre-
vent the meeting had proved truitless.
1t is brief but most pathetic passage:
&C 1t was Friday evening"" he says,
cor rather night, when l went to see
Mr.. Clay for the last time before the
duel The family were in the parlor,
company present, and some of it stayed
late. The youngest child went to sleep
on the sofa. Mrs. Clay was, as always
since the death of her daughter, the
picture of desolation, but calm, CONVEX
sible, and without the slightest apparent
consciousness of the impending event"
At half past four the next day the
duel occurred; so that Mrs. Clay never
heard of the hostile meeting until she
heard that it had been bloodless.
The daughters, to whose death Col.
Benton alludes, died in circumstances
peculiarly distressing to their parents.
Both had reached the interesting age
of fourteen, and were most tenderly be-
loved by all the circle of their relations
and friends. Lucretia died at home, in
1928, when both Of her parents were at
Ashland to watch her dying bed and
follow her to the grave. Eliza left
Ashland with her parents in the spring
of 1925, when her father was removing
to Washington to take the post of secre-
tary of state. They had gone as far as
Cincinnati when she was taken sick,
but, after resting a day or two was able
to resume herjourney. Soon, however,
new symptoms appeared, and Mr.. Clay
was obliged to leave his family and
proceed to Washington alone. Nine
days after the intelligence reached him
that she was no more. The next day
the southern mail brought news still
more distressing; that his daughter
Susan, aged twenty, the wife ola gen
tleman residing at New Orleans, had
suddenly died.
1t is impossible to convey in language
an adequate conception of the grief
caused to both the parents by these
sudden and repeated bereavements.
Mrs. Clay, as Col. Benton remarks, was
for years the picture ofdesolation Her
husband, on one occasion, when address
ing jury, CHANGED to use the phrase,
GO v1cissitudes of human life,'' in allusion
to the domestic Affections of his client.
AS he said these words, torrent of
painful recollections rushed upon his
mind, and he was so overpowered with
emotion as to be obliged to sit down.
No one present could account for the
scene, until Mr.. Clay, in apologizing
for the interruption, disclosed its cause,
when the whole court was dissolved in
tears.
Mrs. Clay lived with her husband in
happy married life for the space of fifty
three years. She had not the consola-
ton of witnessing her husbands dying
moments. She was at Ashland when
her husband died at Washington, June
the Goth, 1852; and the chief solace of
his last days was receiving minute &C
counts of his family at home. Accom-
panied by committee of the Senate,
the body the departed statesman was
borne to his home near Lexington, and
placed in the principal apartment of the
house, where the funeral solemnities