Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-12
GREAT MEMS WIVES
AND THE TRIBUTES GREAT MEN
HAVE PAID TO THEM.
Happy Married Life of John Bright,
Dean Stanley and
Others.

From Tit-Bits.
This place is perfect" Charles Kingsley
once wrote to his wife from the seaside;
"but 1t seems a dream and imperfect with
out you. I never before felt the loneliness
of being without the beloved being whose
every look and word and motion are the
keynotes Of my life. People talk of love
ending at the altar-fools! 1 lay at the
window all morning, thinking of nothing
but home-how 1 long for it,
There Is nothing in the history of love
more attractive than the pictures of the
ideally happy married lives enjoyed by some
of our greatest men, or more touching than
the tribute they paid to the women who
filled their days with sunshine. Indeed, If
one were asked to present a picture of the
subllmity of married happiness it would
only be necessary to recall the scene in
which Charles Kingsley within few days
OF his own death, having escaped from his
sick room, sat for a few blssful moments
by the bedside of his wife, who was lying
seriously i'll in the next room. Taking one
OF her hands tenderly in his, he said in a
hushed voice, Don't speak. darling. This
is heaven"
John Bright.
Few men, great or small. have been hap
pier in their married life than John Bright
and the story of his inconsolable grief when
his wife, 1.-The sunshine and solace of his
days." was taken from him, forms one of
the most pathetic pages of human history.
ut seems to me-" he pitifully said, "as
though the world was plunged in darkness,
and that no ray of light could ever reach
me again this side the tomb"
1t was Golden who shook him at last
from the lethargy and despair which were
paralyzing his splendid energies. There
are thousands Of homes in England this
moment" he said, where wives, mothers
and children are dying Of hunger. Now,
when the first paroXysm of your grief is
past 1 would advise you to come with me-
and we will never rest until the corn law
is repealed"
The late Dean Stanley, 1t is said. wor-
SHIPPED the very ground his wife, Lady Au-
gusta, trod on, and many are the compli-
ments he paid her. .If I were to epitomize
my wife's qualities" he once said, Il
couldn't do 1t better than in the words
of cabman, who drove US on our honey
moon. Your wife he said, is the best wo-
man in England and 1 quite agree with
him.
"Why should you pity me?" Mr.. Fawcett
the blind postmaster general, remarked to a
friend who had expressed sympathy with
him in his aff1lction. My wife is all the
eyes 1 want. and no ever looked out
on the world through eyes more sweet or
true"
Sheridan's Wives.
Sheridan was very happy in MS wives, al
though one of them, before marrying him.
spoke of her future husband as that fright,
that horrid creature In marked contrast
to this unf1atterng description was the
compliment he paid to his first wife, whom
he had wooed disguised as hackney coach
man. when he spoke of her as the connect
ing link between a woman and an angel"
No man ever relied more completely on his
wifes guidance. and counsel than John
Keble, the poet of the Christian Year"
From the day when he installed his bride
in Hursley vicarage to the last sad hour,
thirty years la ter, when he died in her arms
at Bournemouth, she was, as he often de-
clared, his conscience, memory and COM
mon sense
DR.. Puseys too brief married life was
also crowded with happiness and his wife s
memory was his solace during the
forty-three years he survived her. To his
dying day the very sight and smell of the
verbena plant affected him to tears, for it
was a sprg of verbena he offered to Miss
Barber when he asked her to marry. him
1.-The most sacred and blissful moment of
his life.
William Goblet.
William Goblet was very properly proud
of his wife. the brave and devoted woman
who was, in his words, 1.-The best helpma te
an undeserving man ever had. Whatever
mistakes 1 have made in my life-and they
have been many and great-she has never
had a word of blame for me- not hing but
sweet sympathy and consolation. The price
of such wife should indeed be far above
rubies.''
DR.. Wordsworth, late bishop of Lincoln,
said that his welded life had been ''as near
perfection as was possible this side of
Eden" Their children a friend once
wrote, "can never remember a day or even
an hour when, even in surface matters, the
perfect harmony was infringed upon" and
favorite joke with the bishop was that he
and his wife had never been ''reconciled'-
for the happy reason that they had never