Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-10-17
BETWEEN OURSELVES.

tiOn-are usually the women who make no vi
tai mistakes. This is showing strength under
a concentration of creditable circumstau ces
| which would gladden. the heart of Mark Tap
| ley. Take for instance the wife of Dickens.
| She was said to be aimable ana worthy, but an
exasperating embodiment of irrelevance in the
midst of much genius and prosperous adj
| vancement in the world. She was totally un-
manageable In the hands of those who sought
to reconstruct her for the uses of genius. and
she had to be set aside.
| Dickens proclamation to the world justifying
his course in separating from the mother of
his numerous children is SO fraught with self
pity that at first his audience considered him
an injured man.
As the years went by the absolute silence of
| Catherine Hogarth Dickens became
| the most powerful rebuttal ever
| offered. The moral dignity and
| self-respect, which kept such wonderful bal
ance in all the Misrepresentation of the forlorn-
est interval ever lived through by any
woman, prove her to have been anything but
| weak and commonplace
| The death Of her great and mean spouse
| doesn't tempt her with an opportunity to
| break the silence which has become SO impress
| siye. When his damaging letters are pub
| lished she preserves the same discretion. Her
daughter, and her sister enshrined in the home
| and affection withheld from her, can prepare
| the hurtful correspondence for publication.
The maligned and sighted wife is buried
| with packet of Dickens love letters in her
coffin, and he lies in Westminster Abbey, while
his fame is as universal as sunlight. And
hers? Well, he never dreamed of it-but her
attitude towards him SO belittles him at last,
of earlier years, and the adulation of multi
tudinous readers, to ofise. to some extent the
verdict Of just Inflammation which closes
upon his man hood.
This woman was set aside as weak
and insufficient, yet the evidence shows
| anything but that.
On the other hand tie wife of Lord Lytton,
while pluming herself On her intellectual
strength displayed lamentable weakness. In
stead of silence over her wrongs she wrote and
spoke bitterly and vengefully of her husband.
Cheveley, or the Man Of Honor, was fero-
cious attack on Bulwer, aud stung him into a
reply to Philarete Chasles, who reviewed the
book in the Revue de deuz Mondfs. calling it
scandalous and destable and as
serting that without harming her husband in
the least Lady Bulwer had entirely destroyed
her reputation of being at least clever woman
While denying Cheveley any merit, save mall
ice, the critic nevertheless identifies Bulwer'
his position and surroundings, so Extensively
with the situations and descriptions of the
book that he is annoyed SO much as to write an
explanatory and expostulatory letter to Nj.
Philarete Chasles. 1t lis lengthy epistle-
but one or two excerpts will show the gist of
it. 81 have now to assure
you upon my honor as a
gentleman that in not one single incident, an
ecdote, or trait narratedSin that fiction CT
Cheveley can the minutest shadow of truth as
relates to my brother, my family or myself be
discerned. In the separation from Lady B.,
which was compelled to seek, have the writ
ten testimony of her own trustees to the
honor and liberality of my conduct. Dickens
in his letter to the public explanatory of his
marital difficulty, echoes this sentence in spirit
and almost in expression).
ITO my family that lady has repeatedly ex-
pressed the warmest gratitude, and if she now
seeks to insinuate caiumnies against any of
them it is because (and solely because) there is
no other way in which she can any longer
wound the heart and the feelings of the father
of her children"
So far Master Bulwer' exalts and explains
himself, and all the misery and injustice
which goaded his partner into her violent
outspokenness are ignored. because ION his
honor as gentleman che is sure no fault can
be laid at his door. Yet for all this high and
mighty manner Sir Edward did knock his wife
down just as Bill Skies whaled Nancy when e
was out of sorts-aye and just as most En-
glishmen are tempted to do when women are
refractory; justifying themselves when neces-
sary with the beautiful statute so well expOun-
ded by Sir James Scarlett. Lord Alinger even
in our own day thus making it no medieval
curelty of authority, but reassertion OF the
Englishmsn's legal prerogative when he feels
disposed to beat his wife-sither for "giving &
| bull pups milk to the babby" or for wiping up
split ink from costly table with twenty
guinea lace handkerchief, as Lazy Bulwer i'm
pulsively did, where tits asserted he struck her
down.
Twas my lady's money which bought the
| husbands seat in parliament, and perhaps it
was this memory which impelled her to face
| him on the hustings during his eandidature for
| Lincoln He greeted with old
eggs and cabbage stalks, and his speech insult
| ingly hindered until he left the scene.
Her hatred Of him was aggressive and I'M
eeasing. Its intensity and unswervingness
| showed force OF character, but its methods
| evinced weakness. which after all might be
| ascribed to the restrictions of her sex rather
| than an inherent drawback. She must have
| had more provocation than the world knew of,
| to keep up the animosity even yet, when Bull
wer is entombed in Westminster Abbey, in
trenched in death as in life against any posi-
| tive hurt to fame or personal character. Her
| new book, "Blighted Life deals venom
| about evenly between her husband and her Son
Ex.Viceroy of India, whom she styles "a
| miserable hound" Perhaps her luminosity
against "Owen Meredith is due, if rnmOr
be correct to his effort at one time, or his con-
nivance, to place her in a lunatic asylum.
This fresh volume, bristling with hos
| tility towards the dead and the
| living. has stirred much comment
at home and abroad, over an unhappy family
history whose interest ought to be outlawed af-