Daily Kennebec journal., 1885-10-16
miscellaneous.
People OF Letters,
WHOSE MARRIED LIVES SAVIOR DELIC-
IoUsLY OF ROMANCE.


bid. having more than the eccentricities OF
genius. did not marry Sophia Peabody, al
so peculiar, until near 40, an age when it
is commonly difficult tor bachelors to
adapt themselves to new conditions. They
were quite poor, too-poverty always
adds TO the strain and burden of wedlock
and had vexations and grievances with
out end ANY one might have prophesied
that such union would have an unfortun-
ate termination, tor all the sources OF dis
harmony and estrangement were in it.
But it proved exceptionally happy. He
and she were brought most closely to-
gether bv their narrow circumstances and
retiring disposition. and the closer they
got the nearer they grew-the fuller and
deeper their sympathy became.
Ralph Waldo Emerson had two wives.
The first. Ellen Louisa Tucker. lived but
five months the second, Lillian Jackson
he was 80 when he welded her-still
survives, and is an exalted specimen of
womanhood. 1t has been repeatedly as
serted that poets and philosophers make
wretched conjugal partners; that they car
ry neither poetry nor philosophy into the
seclusion of their home. Emerson, how
ever, was both poet and philosopher, and
yet an excellent husband, performing all
the duties of the position completely and
faithfully and lending it every grace of his
fine nature and development. His rare
combination of the practical and ideal
fitted him to be the head of household,
and delightful head he was. No one
who ever visited him failed to testify to
both his genuine hospitality and his ad-
mirable maritalism.
Longfellow was nowhere more OF poet
than in his own family. His wife, Miss
Appleton, was burned to death by the ig
hitting of her garments when she was pre-
pairing for party, and the terrible TRACE
dy never passed from his mind or heart
She was lovely creature, it was univer-
sally conceded, and he mourned her loss,
which came when he was comparatively
young, to his dying hour. He did not
not murmur nor visibly grieve, but he sat
patiently, though pensively, under the
shadow of his great atlliction, evlncing a
beautiful resignation to his wdowerhood.
As father he was an example OF gentle
ness. tenderness and affection. and his
children adored him. For thirty years he
lived alone, never seeking to assuage his
bereavement by taking another com
panion.
Lowell has been shining example of all
that man ought to be in the tenderest and
sacredest of relations to women. He also
has been twice married. His first wife,
Maria White, lived but nine years, dying
at 32, and leaving behind her reputation
the aroma of which still fingers about
Cambridge, and another generation has
arisen since she passed into the realm of
eternal silence. She was likewise poet.
and her exquistely delicate and tender
songs, printed privately in a volume, show
that her mind and culture have not been
overpraised. The second Mrs. Lowell
was long an invalid. and his devotion to
her was everywhere shown. A man of
the world, fond of society and convivial
occasions of a refined order, he never neg.
lected her for day.
The late Richard Grant White was an
ardent lover of home, having been seen
little in general society and not member
of any of the large clubs. The manifold
shows and festivities of the metropolis,
except fine play, seldom allured him
from the Lares and Penates-the chief del
ties worshipped-beyond his threshold.
William d. Howells, who welded the
sister of Larkin G.. Mead. the sculptor.
divides the time between literature and
his family. He is so much in love with
his wife that some of his friends say that
he sees in her all the fine varieties of her
sex, and from her fashions his interestin 9
heroines, looking at her from different an
giles.
Edmund Clarence Stedman, who made
a love match when a mere boy. running
away with the pretty girl who had fascin-
ated him, has kept up the romance even
since; and he is now. although compara-
lively Young, grandfather. Whatever
he writes his wife hears first. and she is,
he says, his gentlest and yet his most ex-
acting critic.
George William Curtis is so enamored
of his peaceful and attractive home a,
Staten Island that it is hard to draw him
away. He married the daughter of Fran
els Shaw, who fell at Ft.Wagner at the head
of the first colored regiment raised in the
North. A fine, strong, cultured woman,
fond of outdoor life, particularly OF
horses, she and her children have always
been the poles of his being, the sunshine
of his years.
Harriet Prescott (Spotford) has written
from her early grlhood. change of cir.
cumstances having thrown the support OF
the family mainly upon her. A poet and
genius. she might be thought to be one
of those wayward. emotional. inconstant
creatures who could never possess per-
manent feeling and who would be consti-
tutionallv incapable of true wifehood.
But the fact is that she is domestic to the
core. She and her husband, Richard S
Spoflord. went to school together. were
in love with one another as girl and boy,
and are rs much in love to-day as when
/ they were in their teens.
Mrs Frances Hodgdon Barnett, the nov
/ elist, differs from most non-literary wives
/ in the circumstance that she is conspicu-
ously-they might say toolishly-in love
with her lord. They are as intimate in
every respect as they can be; they have
no thought or feeling that they do not
share. They might be termed connu-
bial pair OF spoons.
The late H. H., Mrs. Helen Hunt, whose
second husband was William S. Jackson,
had many of the traits ascribed to genius,
but Indifference to her husband was not
one of them. They were very fond of one
another, and he was always her last court
OF appeal The same might be said oil
Julian Hawthorne. j. W. DeForest, Mark
Twain, (Clemens). Charles Dudley War
ner or almost any writer If there has