The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1875-07-01
LADY FRANKLIN.
Touching History

Thor, :. .omething both touching and
,naropriate in the petition OF Lady
Nan Kiln, lying in dangerous and per
bans mortal illness, for the prayers of the
4 merican people 1t was an American
expedition which brought to an end her
terrible and long-lingering suspense.
From Nc Clintock and his brave com.
rades she at last learned the not to be
doubted news that her gallant and heroic
husband had persisted amid the icy mys-
ferries of the iarthest North. Lady Frank
lin did not need this proof of American
interest in her life purpose and heart :
work; her sutferings, her noble herOism,
her unSelish devotion, her untiring en-
ergy, her uncowed spirit, have always
received our warmest sympathies. Sure
" her appeal will be answered, ifnot in
the churches-where perhaps it may be
at least in thousands of hearts impress
ed with the beauty of her devotion
throughout the land. The old classic
tales of wifely fidelity and selt-sacrifce
almost pale before her heroic search for
her husbands fate for more than thirty
years. Left alone at an age when II Is
proper to DO Joyous, and cxcusablc to be
Siddy and forgetful, she has passed early
and later youth, womanly prime, and on
coming age in this constant, hcart-ring-
ing, yet undismayed pursuit. TIL" pleas
urcs, the ambitions Of life were atar of
from her; her soul dwclt in the grim soil
tudes of ice deserts; her spirit was in the
varue regions where there Is nothing of
vegetation, where an awful and eternal
silence reignS but where, also she bcliev-
ed that her hero husband, dead or alive,
must be. We may guess that for long
years there dwclt q hope in her heart that
Sir John was yet alive; that he had
somehow escaped, perhaps, from the vast
ice prison; that he had passed, by peril.
/ oss wanderingS, and might be hip-wrcck.
/ ed, far beyond the frozen North, and been
thrown upon some remote but hospitablt
land, where the grass grew and men
could live.
Then came the truth, that the vestiges
of Franklin and his men had been found,
vcs;igos which left no doubt OF their idcn
tity, or Of the long ago accomplished fate
of the vovugcrs. Certainly, even the
,addest, Is better than narrowing sus-
pense; and Lady Franklin was us heroic
under the sure bereavement rs she had
borne up uobly while there was still
hope. Franklin must indeed have been
II noble man to have inspired such devo-
ton in the hearts Of two selt-sacrticing
wives. His first wife, Eleanor Porden,
Law mortally i'll when be set out on ms
second Arctic expedition, in ls25. lie
offered to remain till she was well, but
she begged him to proceed on his voyage,
and placed in his hands silk flag which
.he asked him to hoist in the Polar sea,
He sailed; and the day after his gentle
Young wife died. He returned in three
wears to wed Jane Griffin, the Lady who
i. now known as Lady Franklin; the
story of her devotion is household words
in both countries. What she has suffer
ed. none can tell; that she has suffered
noblv, all men have seen. And now, at
last, after long, weary waiting, and
when she has passed the psa'mists limit
of hreescore and ten by five years, i
NAV be that her lifes desire is about to b
| granted her, and that she will, ere long
rcioin her long-lost hero and husband
| Should she pass away, it is to be HOPED
| that her memory will be honorcd by
memorial in England's grandest style.