Weekly Trinity journal., 1875-09-04
WIFELN DEVOTION.

as it was supposed, nigh unto DEATH sent
to the women of this country the pecul-
iarly womanish and pathetic message
that they should pray for her. There is
at least chance that the bones OF her
husband may in year or two be brought
seems, would hold death off yet n little
while that she may receive them. Every
woman was of course touched by this re-
quest ; the coarsest journals in copying it
commented on it with grave respect
The white haired old woman, who in the
eyes of the whole world still shows her
faithful devotion to the husband who left
her in the flush of her youth and beauty
to return no more to her, has been, for
this generation, one of the most pathetic
figures in modern history. The facts of
her story have been exceptionally pctur-
esque and dramatic. There was the brave
explorer gone down into eternal cold and
silence into the chambers where the
snow and ice are born, that uninhabited
country of awful night, and moro awful
splendors of light, whose mysteries are
but little less terrible than those of llades,
and there was the poor wife, powerful on
ly in her devotion, going from one coun
try to another asking help to find and
bring him back from death. When the
appeal of the woman was answered, and
twenty expeditions ono after another at
cost of over $4,000, 900 were sent out by
shrewd practical governments upon this
Quixotic errand, the heart of the worli
was touched. Nothing in the old crus-
AIDES was more chivalro than this res
ponse to wife's appeal; these money
making mercenary days need more than
the old poet n great thought now and then
to refresh them, and, as we told our
conjugal love was Of the grand old heroic
model it took us back to tho days of
Lucreta. We oven felt little surprise
that the story should have missed its way
and happened in our own age, among be-
paniered and fashionable women, and
petty, intermnable scandal gossip, and
suits in divorce courts.
But, after all, is it worth our while 20
consider whether the eternal ice and the
snow and the great national expedition
may not have served rs a pedestal to lift
this special woman's loyalty into notice
and whether, under the belrillcd and fash
ionable and commonplace lives of the
women who live next door or jostes us
IN the horse-cars, there may not be found
love and faith Of just as large and pure
proportions. Love and marriage are the
rule among US, and love and marriage
are not, in spite of appearances, matters
o f gush and foul jealousy and fouler pas
sion, to be paved and gloatcd over by
the public. The majority Of American
wives have no opportunity to prove the
depth Of their loyalty in countless lives
it never finds louder expression than in
daily service, cooking, sowing, the rear
ing of childrcn, trivial helps, modesties,
forbearances, tendernesses, offered hourly
for life long, but to which no thought
or notice is gwen by her who gives or ho
| who takes.
There are of course, you tell yourself,
unfortunate exceptions to this calm, un-
! jostled state Of married life. There is,
for instance, Waugh's wife, whose pew
is next yours in church. Waugh is new
or in it, he takes Sunday to bring up his
foreign correspondence You knew him
when he was n light hearted young fell
low on the farm near Oldtown, caring for
nothing but Annie and the boy" and
| how TO make life wholesomer and cheer
fuller for them. He is a gaunt, specta-
cled old man now, hair and eyes and
skin all of like washed. out bloodless
color Waugh and Son are among the
soidcst importers on White Street. The
old man is down at the Office hours before
his clerks, and ut night he receives men
on business. A generation ago his wife
fell out Of her place 20 him and became II
piece Of furniture in his house. He does
not know what to do with his money, it
gathers and heaps itself about him SO
fast his thoughts and affections and soul
went down into it long ago. Nobody but
his wife could hope to find in this mum
my the hearty, aiiectionate lad whom she
loved and married. But does she hope
| it? 1t is that old Charley" whom sho
clngs to and watches for, and who, as
she believes, will come back to her at
last from this chase oe greed in which he
has lost health and youth and character
everything but one wonIan's love.
There is, too, that pretty, faded little
Mrs. Hicks, who sits opposite you at the
boarding house table, and has no eyes or
ears for anything but that very pug
nosed, disagreeabe schoolboy at her side.
All know where old Ned is, and she
knows it, though she tells US every day
he is in Europe for the firm. She used
10 creep down the street at night last
Winter and stand opposite certain
house on Thirty Fourth street to see him
come out with a woman loyelicr than she
was in her freshest prime, and drive off
with her to opera and ball, and she would
stretch out her arms after him and pray
to God to bring him back to her, and be-
lieved, too, that lie would do it.
Or--to go down to what you choose to
call the lower classes, whore life is, of
course, you think, barred Of all romance
and delicacy of sentiment there is your
washerwoman, Of whom you may remem-
Der to have vaguely heard she had It
drunken husband. You met the woman
one day, too, and observed what pa
ticnt face she had, and that she was too
IL !. l--.-L -. l. L J.