The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-08-29
GREAT MEN AND raEle WIVES.
TArS. Opie P. Read. la she Arkansaw Lsdies'
 Iournal.l

of literary men, that their domestic hvoS are in the highest degree unsatisfactory. While thls may have proved true in a few instances, notably with Byron and Dickens, | am inclined to the heliet that the majority of great men are unusually happy in their home lives
 For instance, the poet Lougfellow was one of the happiest of men, until the tragic death of bis wife to whom he was devosedly attached. What influence her memory exerted upon his writings, what poems of passion and tragedy and death less love were inspired by thought of her, the world can never know; that he wor. shiped her can be detected in the con- stant little love song which runs through all his writings in poem found after his death, in every verse of and immortality. In it occur these lines:
 live, oh, lost one, for the living
 Who drew their earliest lte from thee. And wait, until with glad thanksgiving
 shall be free.
 For death shall bring another waiting, Beyond the shadows of the tomb,
 On wonder shore bride IS waiting
 Until come.
 In the life of l. G. Holland we have one of our brightest examples of domes- tic felicity. In every thing he has written, there is vein of love and tenderness such as no man could or would have written who had not deeply loved and received love in return. In one of his earlier works he says of her, " Thank heaven that my wife can never grow old that so long as she can hear. and l can whisper, she shall know by fond comics sion that her soul is next to mine-hnked to mine-mine
 After many years, when both had passed the middle arch of life, when every dream which love and ambit.ea= can give had been perfected, he wrote these simple and beautiful lines upon the title page of volume of verse:
 "Idedicate Katrina the work of my hand to Elizabeth the wife of my heart"
 Could anything tell more completely how perfectly for him the aloe bloomed 2 In recent newspaper article "Mark Twain pays this glowing tribute to tho mother Of hts children !" The mother of my children adores them. They know her, and know her, for one of the best and dearest mothers that lives and by long, long way the wisest"
 These few words go to show " Mir. Twain's home to be one of the happiest.
 Robert lngersoll, atheist though he be, has said and written some of the most beautiful things of love and marriage that any age has yet produced. He it was who wrote the transcendingly beautiful sentiment: "l like to think of love as eternal. Treat your wife as though she were splendid flower, and she will fill your life with perfume and joy" It has been said by those who know, that his home life is dream ot beauty, living poem.
 The memory of Garfield IS thousand times endeared by his reverence for his wife and mother. One of the sweetest, most pathetic. most sugges. tive incidents in any life, was the inn pulse which caused him to salute with a kiss his wife and aged mother in the pres- ence of the vast throng who had come to witness his inauguration. It was the one thread of gold which united his private life with his brief public career. lust such little things comprise nobility itself, "and make the whole world kin" | It seems to have remained for the late General Grant to give us one of the purest illustrations of domestic life the world has ever known. Throughout a long and distinguished career his affec- tion for his wife never wavered. When already upon the threshold of another existence, and fearing that all too soon death might claim him, he hastened to write the words that were to assure her mpetency. Even in his last moments his thoughts were with her, and his ex- pressed wish that she might rest beside him. Great in everything he undertook, his life of simple and unswerving loyalty to his family is one of the grandest pic lures that has ever been produced. There is many lesson 10 be learned from the life of Grant. He was manly and earnest to an unusual degree, consequently the elements of intense joy and griei were never wanting.
 That Mrs Grant was a devoted wife and mother none can doubt. Although the leaves of this part of her hearts his tory we may not yet turn, we cannot but know that the remembered radiance of his love will golden all the sad. swee, memories of his glorious career. No life, however commonplace, passes across the worlds stage without being touched by the silver light of love and romance, but when it touches an ideal figure, then is it grand, indeed. These are not only in- dividual experiences, but they arc also typical.
 They were not beautiful, these wo- men of whom write, neither were they leaders in the world of fashion and society; but they were, without exception, women who held the love of husband and children and home higher than all else beside. hold that no one, and es- pecially no woman, can ever wholly out live the age of romance, and it is to wo- men, rather than men, that 30 much of domestic happiness is due. In spite of all the slurs and slings of the pessimis. there are more ideal homes, and ideal lives than of which the world has ever dreamed. The path, as is often does,