Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-05-09
Charles KingsIay's First MeetiBi
with His Wife.

From Charles. Kingsley, his Letters and
Memorials Of his Life.l
On the 9th of July Charles and his fu-
ture wife met for the first time. That
was my real wedding day" he said SEINE
fifteen years sfterward. He was then
full Of religious doubts; aud his face,
with its unsatis6ed . hungering look, bore
witness to the state Of his mind. II had
a sad, longing expression, too, as if he
had all his life been looking for a sympa
thy be had never found-a rest which he
never would attain in this world. His
peculiar character had not been under
stood hitherto, aud his heart had been
half asleep. 1t woke up o and never
slept again. For the frat time he could
speak with perfect freedom, and he met
With answering sympathy. Aud gradual
" as the new friendship (which yet
seemed old-from the first more Of a
recognition than an acquaintance deep
encd into intimacy, every doubt, every
thought, every failing, every sin, as be
would call it, was laid bare. Counsel
was asked 2nd given, and things in
heaven ana esah discussed, and as new
hopes dawned the look of hard defiance
rave way to a wonderful humility and
tenderness, which we're his characteris'
tics with those who understood him to his
dying day. He wa just like his own
Lancelot in Yeast" IN that summer OF
1888 bold thinker, a bold rider, a most
chivalrous gentleman-sad, shy and Sc
rious habitually; 10 conversation, at one
momen brilliant and impassioned, the
next reserved and unapproachable; by
turns attracting and repelling, but pour
ing forth to the friend whom he could
trust stores of. thought and feeling and
information on every sort of unexpected
subject which seemed boundless. 1t was
q feast to the Imagination and intellect
to hold communion with Charles Kings
ley, even at the age Of twenty; the origi-
nality with which he treated a subject
was startling, and his genius illuminated
every object it approached, whether he
spoke of the delicious SILVER of those
aspen leaves on the nearest tree, or Of
the deepest laws Of humanity and the
controversies of the day. OF that inter
course truly might these friends each say
with Goethe: For the first time, | may
we'll say, l carried on a conversation; for
the first time was the Utmost sense Of my
words returned to me, more rich, more
full, more comprehensive, from anothers
mouth. What. | had been cropping for
was rendered clear to me; what | had
been thinking | was taught to see." '
! The Oxford tracts had lately appeared,
and, though he discussed them from the
merely human and not the religious point
of view, he 6ereely denounced the ascetic
view Of sacred human ties which be fore
saw would result from them. Even then
be detected in them principles which, as
he expressed years afterward in his pre-
face to Hypatia, mzst, if once adopted,
sap the very foundation Of the two divine
roots Of the church-the ideas OF family
and national life. Two months Of such
intercourse passed away only too quick
ly, and though from this time for the
next four years and a half tie friends
met but seldom, and correspondent at
rare intervals, q new life had dawRed for
both, which neither absesce nor sorrow,
UlueTeuCb VI I6llRlOu OpihlVhbi OppOhl-
ton of friends or adverse circumstances
could extinguish. Before he left Oxford
shire he was so far shaken in his doubts
that he promised to read his Bible once
more--to pray-to open his heart to the
light, il the light would but come. ALL
however, was dark for . time, and the
| conflicts between,hopes and fears for the
future, and between faith and unbelief,
was so fierce and bitter that when be re-
turned to Cambridge he became reckless,
and nearly gave up all for lost; he read
little, went in for excitement of all kinds
boating, hunting, driving, fencing, box
ing, duck shooting in the fens-anything
to deaden the remembrance ofthe happy
past, which Just then promised no future
More than once he had nearly resolved
to leave Cambridge, and go out to the far
| West and live as a wild prairie hunter;
to this be refers when, for the first time,
he found himself on the p%rairies Of
America, in 1874 But through all God
kept him in those dark days for a work
he little dreamed Of