Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-17
LATE LADY PETERBOROUGH.
Story of the Noble Woman Who Mar.
ried an Arab.
1t Reads Like a Leaf Torn From the
Pages of the Arabian Nights
Entertainments.

Mrs. Lew Wallace, In her famous book.
The Repose in Egypt, now in press.
gives an exceedingly fowery account of
Lady Peterborough. the eccentric wife of
an English nobleman. who. emulating
the example of Lady Hester Stanhope
and Lady Mary Worthy Montague, not
to mention a French lady, Nine. De la
Tour d Auvergne, who built herself a
temple on the top of Mount Olivet, and
lives there now, deserted her country
and went to live in the far east. Mrs.
Wallace says of her: One day she fed
to Italy, and after years of reckless
living thence to Greece. The House of
Lords easily granted divorce to her hus-
band. and the children remained with him.
By the terms of divorce a large income was
allotted to her, and she set up the standard
OF wit and beauty, and to it flocked genius
and valor. She married again, a noble
man OF Greece, from whom she was separ-
ated by command of Kin Ohio. Determin-
ed to rival Chatham s eccentric granddaugh-
ter, she sailed away from Greece to see what
the gorgeous east is made of Her ample
income gave her means of gratifying a
taste exquisite as it was luXurious-ser-
wants, carriages, furniture, plates, linen, a
French maid, the companion of her change
There are good old citizens of Bevrout who
remember the stir among an idle populace
when the great English lady landed at the
seaport. Her languages gave her the
broadest range of acquaintance. and she
had genius for friendship. Officials of
rank crowded the saloon, a throne room,
where she spoke one evening in French,
Italian, Slav, German, Arabic, Turkish
and Greek as readily as her native
tongue. Page after page is devoted by
Mrs. Wallace to describing the surround
lngs and life of the wonderful woman
who grew tired Of Damascus, and set out
for the hills of the fre-worshipers, Bagdad.
For guidance and guardianship she travel
ed with squad of Anazehs under sheik.
Mrs. Wallace does not think it best to
tell names and tales together, so she calls
the sheik Aular. His real name was Digbv
ell Mezrab. In describing him she takes
occasion to say that when you find the best
Oriental, the exquisite grace of his bearing,
the smooth, patent, courteous dignity of
his manner, surpass the highest breeding
of Christian courts. Then she quoted the
remarks of an acquaintance, who saws:
The further east you go the finer the man
ner. First among the sons of men for
polish and urbanity is the Arabian, next
to him the Turk; then comes the Italian;
then the Spaniard and Frenchman: then the
cold, stiff Englishman, and lastly the
helter-skelter American, and presume
California is worse than Chicago, though
| have never been there
Lady Peterborough married the sheik in
his tent In the desert, with no witnesses
but Arabs, and according to laws of Islam.
The bride found, to her horror, when she
returned to Damascus, that she had for
feited her nationality and had become a
Turkish subject She never repented of
her bargain, but made over her property
to her husband and lived with him for ff-
teen years, when she died regretted by the
tribe and by all Arabs. She was devoted
y attached to her husband, and he to her.
The wife of the English consul at Damas-
Gus, who knew her, said that she and her
husband were never apart; that she kept
his respect and was the mother and queen
of his tribe. When she died rare shrine
was erected to her memory at Damascus.
The romance of Lady ElleDborough's
life Mrs. Wallace heard under the palms,
sung in low, slow song by Anazeh, who
had no thought when singing that the
wife of the American minister to Turkey
was listening.