Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1875-08-05
Wifely Devotion.

ing, as was supposed, nigh unto death)
sent to the women of this country the
peculiarly womanish and pathetic mes
sage that they should pray for her. There
IS as least a chance that the bones of her
husband may in year or two be brought
back to England, and the faithful soul, it
seems, would hold death off yet a little
while that She may receive them. Every
woman of course was 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 re-
turn 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 picturesque 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 more awful splendors of
light, whose mysteries are but little less
terrible to the living world than those of
Hades; and there was the poor wife, pow
erful only in her devotion, going from one
| country to another asking help to find and
bring him back from death. When the
appeal of the woman was answered, and
! twenty expeditions one after another at a
! cost of over $G,000,000 were sent out by
shrewd practical Governments upon
| this QuiXOtic Grand, the heart of
| the world was touched. Nothing
| in the old crusades was more
| chlvalric than this response to wite's APP
| peal; these money-making, mercenary
days need more than the old poet great
thought now and then to refresh them,
and as we told ourselves, we had it here.
This woman's conjugal love was of the
grand old heroic model; it took us back
to the days OF Lucretia. We even felt a
little surprise that the story should have
missed its way and happened in our own
age, among bepanered and fashionable
women, and petty interminable scandal
gossip, and suits in divorce courts.
But, after all, is it not worth our while
| to consider whether the eternal ice and
snow and the great national expeditions
may not have served as pedestal to lift
this especial woman's loyalty into notice;
and whether, under the befrlled and fash
ionable and commonplace lives of the
women who live next door or jostle us in
| the horse cars, there may not be found love
and faith of just as large and pure proper
tions2 Love and marriage are the rule
among us, and love and marriage are not,
in spite Of appearances, matters of glsh
and foul jealousy and tOuler passion, to be
paved and eloated over by the public
| The majority of American wives have no
| opportunity to prove the depth of their
| loyalty; in countless lives 1t never finds
| louder expression than daily service,
cooking, sewing, the rearing of children,
| t,,,, sol I,,l,,
dernesses, offered hourly for life long,
| but to which no thought or notice is given
| by her who gives or him who takes.
There are of course, you tell YOURSELF
unfortunate exceptions 10 this calm, un-
| josted state of married life. There is, for
instance, Waughs wife, whose pew is
in it; he takes Sunday to bring up his
foreign correspondence You knew him
when he was lighthcarted young fellow
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, specialized
| old man now, hair and eyes and skin of Il
| like washed-out, bloodless color; Waugh
! Il Son are among the solidest importers
| on White street The old man is down at
the Office hours before his clerks, and at
| night he receives men on business. A
| generation ago his wife fell out of her
| place to him and became piece of turni-
| ture 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 mummy the hearty,
| atfectionate lad whom she loved and mar
| ried. But she does hope it. 1t is that old
Charley whom she clings to and
| watches for, and who, she believes, will
come back to her at last from this chase
of greed in which he has lost health and
youth and misunderstanding but one
woman's love.
There is, too, that pretty, faded little Mrs,
| Hicks, who sits opposite to you at the
boarding house table, and has no eyes nor
thought for anything but that very pug
nosed, disagreeable schoo-boy at her
| side Young Ned is the image of his
| father, and that is why she worships him.
| Everybody knows where old Ned.is, and
| she knows il, though she tells us every
| day that he sis in Europe for the firm
| She used to creep down the street al night
last winter and stand opposite certain
| house on Thirty fourth street to see him
come out with a woman 0ovel;er than she
was in her freshest prince, and drive oil
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 He would do it.
Or--to go down to what you choose to
| call the lower classes, where life is, OF
| course, YOU think, barred OF all romance
! and deicacy of Sentiment-there Is your
washerwoman. of whom you remember
vaguely to have heard she had drunken
h,,.hnnl Nnli rnnt thu. woman one day.