New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-05-06
An Earl's Divorce Suit.

AL A4I4 . O1VO1C8 9U4G.
Sir Walter Scott, in his thrilling story
of @The Bride of Lammermoor, has
shown us bride driven mad and muir
der1ng the bridegroom on the wedding
night. Up to that time she was sub
missive, silent and apparently resigned
to her appointed fate. The divorce suit
brought by the Earl of Durham, which
is now being tried before SIR James
Hammer in London is scarcely less
strange in its developments than the
great noveGst's story, though happily
the tragic climax is wanting. The
young Earl, who inherits one of the
finest estates in England, is gentle
man universally respected for his ami
able and generous qualities, and is now
only twerty-nine years old. Two
years ago he met, courted and
married Miss Ethel Miner an orphan,
who had been for two seasons the reign
ing beauty of fashionable society in
London. The marriage was the event
of the time and the talk of the town, for
one of England's wealthiest earl's was
marrying for love an orphan girl with
out title. The passionate lover laid at
her feet the most precious of his ances-
trail heirlooms. Had she been kings
daughter her swanlike neck and classic
brow could not have shone with more
resplendent jewels than those he gave
her. he loved her with ali his acres
and with all his heart.
The young earl might as well have
fallen in love with the Venus of Milo.
The snow white arms of his bride were
as cold as the art1stically rounded limbs
of any marble goddess; the beauteous
bosom of his countess never enraptured
him with throb of reciprocal affec-
ton. II WONDER" the generous lover
wrote to her after they were engaged,
"if you will ever talk to me. After
marriage I could gaze on your charms
some hours every day; but it will be-
come monotonous if we maintain this
gloomy silence the rest of the time. y
Still, the virgin he adored did not even
wink at him, and he appropriately
styled her CHS silent, shy divinity"
The Earl supposed that this reserve
was modesty blushing at It's own refec,
ton and that her silence was but
maiden meditation, fancy FREE" He
would not rob his idol of that liberty Of
silence and freedom Of reserve. It was
enough for him that her silence gave
consent when he proposed to marry he1
and that her legal guardian made no OBJ
lection to the match. Once or twice
however, before the wedding day the
beautiful image spoke. Her words
were strange and ominous, ooh
there is something awful, dreadful
which I ought to tell you," but as she
would not explain and he knew that
her life was as unsullied as her person
was beautiful, no dim forebodlng of the
truth occurred to him.
The case is not, perhaps, so uncom
mon as at first it seems. Her mother
had destroyed herself in fit of insanity
and the sole ground on which the un
happy Earl now asks for divorce i.
that the countess is insane. This heredi
tary brain disease was the something
awful, dreadful" which she said sh,
ought to tell him, but never did
Meanwhile, neither before nor afte,
marriage did she bestow upon he,
generous lord look or word or act O
love. When he addressed her in con
versation her invariable answer was {"
don't know" One of the features O
her case is not only this insensibil1ty t.
kindness and affection, but a like in
difference to pain. The lovely Coun
tess of Durham has no nerve centers
no physical sens1bilities, no responsible
conscience or will, no moral faculty TO
good or evil, no reasonable human soul
Her exquisitely formed members en-
shrine no divinity; her Phldian marbl
is but an empty sarcophagus.
Sir James Hammer, who succeede,
Sir James Wilde, now Lord Penzance
as Judge of Probate and Divorce in tn
court of which Sir Cresswell Cresswe]
was the first judge, will no doubt gran
the Earl an absolute divorce, when al
these points are proved. The generou
nobleman will doubtless make ampl
provision for his unfortunate bride
who is as free from fault as she is fro1
feeling. It is fortunate that no heir t
the great estates and titles has bee,
born, or the imagination might forese
a line IF 1amantad Earle citt;rn on,n,,
the peers of England in the years t
come. This hereditary insanity is Al
unspeakable horror, and it is tn
humane duty of those who know of it
existence to communicate the fact t
the intended bride or bridegroom befor
the sentimental rite that makes of twai1
one flesh is solemnized,