The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1889-01-05

|
fair ever looked IN the direction of
marriage. She married another, and
Beethoven does not seem to have been
seriously disturbed. 1t may be that,
like Goethe, he valued the love of
women not for itself or its direct results,
but as an art stimulus which should en-
rich and fructify his own intellectual
life.
Wives have been eyes, hands, mind
and everything to their husbands. The
great authority on "Bees" a
Geneva naturalist-was blind from his
seventeenth year, aud yet he found
means to master a branch of natural
history demanding the closest observa-
ton and the keenest eyesight. 1t was
through the eyes of his wife that his
mind worked as if they had been his
own. She encouraged her husbands
studies as a means OF alleviating his pri-
vat1on, which, at length, he came to
forget. We have all read in the biog-
raphy of the late Professor Fawcett how
his wife was eyes 10 him also. After
2S years experience Faraday spoke CT
his marriage as an "event which more
than any other had contributed to his
earthly happiness and healthy state of
mind" For 46 years the union con-
tinued unbroken, the love of the old
man remaining as fresh, as earnest and
as heart-whole as in the days of his
youth. Another man of science, James
Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam
| hammer, had similar happy exper-
ience, "Forty-two years of married life,"
he SAID, finds US the same devoted
'cronies' that we were at the begin
ming"
1t is pleasanter, however, to end this
paper with the case of a husband who
was shown the pathway to heaven and
made great in the sense of being good
by his wife's practice of piety. "My
mercy" says Bunyan, "was to light
upon wife whose father and mother
were accounted godly. This woman
and |, though we came together as poor
as poor might be (not having so much
household stuff as a dish or a spoon
betwixt US both,) yet she had for her
part sThe Plain Mans Pathway to
Heaven and The Practice of Piety,'
which her father had left her when he
died" By reading these and other
good books, helped by the kindly in.
fluence of his wife, Bunyan was gradu-
ally reclaimed from his evil ways, and
led gently into the paths of righteous
| ness.
Perhaps authors, more than any other
| class of famous men, have been indebt-
| ed to their wives Tom Hood had
such confidence in his wife's judgment
that he read, and reread and corrected
with her all he wrote. Many of his ar
ticles were first dictated to her, and her
ready memory supplied him with refer
ences and quotations. Anthony Troll
lope said that no person but his wife
mad ever read line of his manuscript,
"to my very great advantage in matters
of TASTE"
The French writer, Alphonse Daudet,
had determined to remain a bachelor,
because he was afraid that if he made
wrong step in marriage he might dull
his imagination, but, on being intro
duced to Mademoiselle Julie Allard,
who loved literature, and was a charm
ing writer and critic herself, his fear was
removed. The union proved a very
happy one, and the picture of the two
at work is an attractive bit of biography.
"She has been." says his brother, "the
light Of his hearth, the regulator of his
work and the discreet counselor of his
inspiration. There is not a page that
she has not revised, retouched and en-
livened, and her husband has borne
witness to her devotion and indefatiga-
BILE collaboration in the dedication of
'Nabob ; but she would not allow this
dedication to appear" Once, it is re-
lated, he had a sentimental and dramatic
scene with his wife, concerning which
he remarked: "1his seems, my dear,
like chapter that has slipped out of
novel," at is more likely, Alphonse,"
was the reply, "to form chapter that
will slip into one"
Wives, like Mrs. Carlyle. have as
sisted their husbands work by keeping
house so well that their indigestions and
tempers were not unnecessarily dis
turbed. Hawthorne acknowledged that
the inspiration which produced his i'm
perishable contributions to American
classics depended for its undisturbed
flow on serene and happy domestic
environment, which his wife alone could
supply.
There is much truth in the saying
that man cannot be greater than his
wife will allow him to be. The second
wife of Sir Thomas Moore did all in her
power to lower her husband to her own
level. When Moore seemed slow to
make the most of himself to the world,
the ambitious wife used to exclaim,
"Tilhe vallie Tillie vallle will you sit
and make goslings in the ashes? My
mother hath often said unto me, it is
better to rule than be ruled" To
which familiar expostulation Moore's
usual reply, muttered in the mlldest of
humorous voices, was: "Now, III truth,
that is truly said, good wife, for l never
found you yet willing to be ruled"
Moore could never make her accept, or
even comprehend, the principles that
were to him the first elements of social