The times., 1898-11-13
SISTERS OF GREAT MEN
EmperOrs and Warriors Who
Relied Upon Them.
FIDELITY AND DEVOTION
The Traits That Made Them InvaIu-
onie In Times of Trfal-For Cen
turtles They Have Been the Rivals
of Mothers and Wives In wisdom
and Forethought.

| Every great man has owed much to
| the pre-eminent love or influence Of
some one woman In his life Most often
this woman is his mother, sometimes It
| Is wife. but there are instances, suffi-
cient to fiji book with stories, Of the
| dominant feminine sway being held by
sister. observes a recent writer.
There need not remain the least shad-
! ow Of a doubt but that the woman Moses
took most deeply into his confidence.
and on whom he most firmly relied, was
| his sister Miriam. a woman considerably
| his senior. and by whose cleverness and
| tact he was restored to his mother from
| his watery cradle. Miriam was certain
ly one of Moses's fayorite iieutenants
| during that perilous business of getting
| Israel out OF Egypt
She cheered the fainting hearts of the
Jews by her admirable songs. dancing
| and music, and even the terse sentences
| Of the Old Testament cannot conceal
Moses's genuine grief when Miriam was
I stricken with leprosy, nor his enthusi-
astic pleading with the living God to re-
store her health
Certainly for any woman less beloved
and less honored than his sister he would
| scarcely have done SO much, for 1t is
plainly said that jealousy OF Moses's af-
! fection for his Ethiopian wife brought
/ down this curse upon her She lived and
worked apparently to good old age. and
was buried with honors before her peo-
| pie reached the promised land.
Ii Is curious coincidence that the sis
| ters VINO have welded most influence
have been always older than their great
brothers. and the margarine OF Bay
reuth, Sophie Wilhelmina. crown princess
I OF Prussia, was some years the senior of
I Frederick the Great She was q strange,
passionate, clever and always a very un-
! happy creature, but she stands quite alone
/ as the one woman whom Frederick sin
/ cerely loved. for whose advice he had re-
| spect and whose memory he tenderly
| cherished
| During his tragic youth 1t was In her
he confded. with her he invariably cor
responded, and Frederick had no great
| reverence for the feminine intellect For
his mother he felt a respectful indifer-
| encs, for his wife not even sentiment OF
! friendship. while his other sisters merely
bored him. but poor Sophie. with all her
| faults. evoked in him devotion and rev
| erence that lasted to the end of her days.
| Charles v was another monarch who
said In all his life he had known but ona
| woman whom he could trust IN and rely
| on as he would a man, and that woman
was his sister Mary Of Hungary. She was
a woman after Charles's own rugged and
| warlike heart, and he showed how highly
| he estimated her talents and her virtues
| when he made her regent OF Holland and
| Flanders.
| A less masculine creature would per-
| haps have failed to secure CharIes's es.
TEEN. and In spite OF the heavy beard that
would grow on her stern chin OF her
brawny arms that would pull the strong
est horse on his launches and her savage
| love OF boar hunting, Charles gave her
proof Of the highest affection. He hid
very little OF his most momentous plans
from her, gave her an absolutely free
hand in governing the Low Country, per-
nitted her TO use an iron hand In tina
attempt at Quellins the rising tide OF
heresy. and after governing the Nether-
| landers twenty-five years she retired from
| the regency when her brother abdicated
his throne. Charles shut himself up In his
| monastery, but the brother and sister cor
| responded until this greatest Of the Haps-
burgs died.
Colin Campbell is one Of the warriors
or our century who never married. but
who found great solace In the devotion
his sister. Marjory Alicia, gave him.
Early in his career he was too Door to
marry. and every penny over and above
the barest necessities OF a soldiers life
went to the sister In Scotland. She was
never brilliant or a beautiful woman.
but the hero of the Crimea and the Indian
mutiny gave her ali the faithful affection
tnat often goes to a mother or wife
lie wrote to her. among the horrors OF
the Indian war he remembered her needs.
| and she, q crippled old woman. sat by hi,
bedside when he died. She lived unmar-
ried, as he had done. and inherited a
| comfortable fortune at his death.
| Byron. like Lord Clyde always wrots
| to his sister on the eve of any perilous
undertaking. and among the ten different
versions OF his deathbed remarks his sis
| ter's name invariably appears. Byron. in
| his relations with every woman, was sin
| gularly cruel. exacting and unfaithful.
He abhorred ugliness in women; until hs
was well-grown boy he had never seen
| his sister, and yet this representative,
eccentric, critical and high-temperef
man accorded his plain-faced. convention
al sister the only truly noble sentime Mt
OF which he was capable.
At their first meeting he had pictured a
romantically beautiful woman. He found
| in the honorable Augusta Byron a gil
| almost ugly, but with the kindest eyes
| the most amiable smile, and from that
moment he never faltered In his love. In
| his most tempestous moments, when he
insulted his wife, beat his watch to
pieces in a rage on the hearth and fuddlei
his brain with brandy. Augusta cou-d
soothe and control him by word.
She kept the friendship of his foolish
and almost unmanageable wife, and
brought about the only intervals OF peacs
that reigned between the pair and what
is chiefly TO her credit she never allowed
| her unhappy brother to criticfse or de-
fame mis- wife before her.
When Fanny Mendelssohn died her
brother Felix fell forward fainting; for
| Il month he would neither speak. read.
write nor play the piano. and shortly hs
died. He confessed toward the end hs
had no wish to live since he could not
see his sister again in life, and he was
buried beside her whom he seemed to
have loved more tenderly than wife or
| children
As an admirable musician this sister
was OF inestimable value to MendeIs-
sohn. and her few compositions, pretty
| bits of fancy. he loved to play as much
as his own great productions.
No wit less noble than these other alb
| sorbingly devoted and unselhsh sisters
was Henriette Renan, to whose cheerful
resignation of marriage for his sake her
great brother Ernest testihes Though
an honest man offered Henriette his heart
and home, with all that the prospects of
| wifely dignity and maternal ties must
| have meant to such woman, she with
out hesitation laid the whole Offering on
| he altar of sisterly fidelity.
Dorothy Wordsworth was the woman
who persuaded her brother to devote his