The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-07-30
GENE FIELD AND PEACOCK
He Writes About the Poets Love For His
Divorced Wife.

Eugene Field, the noted Journalist and
writer, devotes half a column in the Chi
cago Record in commenting upon the
divorce suit which separated Mr.. and
Mrs. Thomas Brewer Peacock of Topeka.
He says: with deep regret we learn
that a divorce from her husband has
been had by Mrs Ida Peacock. This
lady is herself of a poetic nature. and her
husband, Thomas Brewer Peacock, has
long been the most conspicuous poet in
the enterprising and progressive
state of Kansas. We do not know,
nor can we guess, the causes lead
ing to the separation of these two beings.
who, we supposed had a particular sym
pathetic affinity for each other We re-
call that much of his earlier work bore
testimony to Mr.. PeacOck's love for his
wife, and in his most celebrated epic
that estimab BILE woman figures as the
heroine and Mr.. Peacock appears as her
lover under the name of Reworb, which
happens to be an inversion of the poets
middle name. 1t was but day or two
ago that we were reading one of Mr..
Peacock's volumes of poetry, and we
were particularly struck with the beauty
of certain lines, which, undoubtedly de-
scrIptive of his wife, testified to his re-
gard for her:
"Ah. yes! methnks see thee now
In all thy wealth of beauty sweet,
With bright tiaras on thy brow
And flowing tresseS to thy fe ct.
ozark eyes of wondrous loveliness-
peri's figure ere its fall
Supernal beauty-no hing less
Thine, darling, dearest one of ALL
Perhaps, at that time, an apprehension of
| the separation which has just come in
duced the poet to add this touching
stanZa:
Though should nevermore greet thee
Down in this vale oft of yOre,
Thou! thou alone the s.ar shall be
That guides me to tn gOal-t Heavens shore!"
Mr.. Peacock had a habit of naming his
heroines after his wife. Her name is
| Ida; the heroines were Adj. So when
he speaks to or of Adj, we know that it
is to or of Ida that he speaks.
! "Thou'rt absent, Adj, and pensive feel
| The blow as keen as woe eer gives to veal"
He tells US that her hand is "fair as
snow" that her merry laugh rings gay
| and free;" that her ''loveliness is com =
plete;" that she has the 'lovely dark
eyes of the SOUTH" that her "rich beau
| ty' is rare and peerless" and that she
possesses sweet, rich, warm, red, wine
kissed mouth" But, says he:
''since thou'rt gone, thus my sad heart feels the
Though Hope family whispers: you will meet
Ali when and where!-When shall greet thee!
Oh!
What JOY to clasp thy fair hand-fair as snow
etc.
1t is quite possible that the divorced
wife, when she comes to go over, quietly
and passiouately, the pages of her
| husbands books, and sees in these out
pourings of his passionate nature a reve-
! lation of his alteration of her-it is posi-
ble-nay, probable-that she will then
relent and will seek to undo the wrong
she undoubtedly is doing in separating
the poet from his inspiration. Thomas
Brewer Peacock's love ie not like the
| glowworm's lamp, Pickering and furtive
1t is as perennial as his poetry. He him
| self has described it in two quatrains of
| characteristic luciditv:
| There's love that's like the meteor
/ Endearing while it lasts
| That hes-burnS-fOrevermo
| Dies-darkness it O'ercastS.
| "Yet, like TIL sweet. f1x'd star of night.
! A love far. far more dear there be;
| Grand, pure, beautiful and bright
| Glowing ever-eternally!'