Evening journal., 1904-02-26
RIBUTES TO WIVES
WORDS or TENDERNESS UTTERED
BY GREAT MEN.

The Homage Thnt Tom Hood Paid to
the Partner OF His sorrows and
JOys-Jcnn Paul Richter's Unstint-
ed Praise of Caroline Mayer.
Few great men have paid more en-
thuslastic tributes TO their wives thai
Tom Hood. and probably few wives
have better deserved such homage, says
the Chicago Chronicle. you will
think" he wrote to her in one Of his
letters, that ! am more foolish than
any boy lover. and ! plead guilty. for
never was a wooer so young of heart
and so stepped in love as l, but It is
love sanctined and strengthened by
long years Of experience. May God
ever bless my darling, the sweetest
most helpful. angel who ever stopped
10 bless a manw Has there ever, We
wonder. lived a wife to whom a more
delicate and beautiful tribute was paid
than those verses OF which the burden
is, Il love thee, love thee; tbs all that
can sayY
Il want thee much" Nathaniel Haw-
tborne wrote to his wife many years
after his long patience had won for
him the flower that was lent from
heaven TO show the possibilities of the
human soul" "Thou art the only per-
son IN the world that ever was neces-
sary to me, and now l am only myself
when thou art within my reach. Thou
art an unspeakably beloved woman"
Sophia Ha ythorne was little better
than a chronic invalid, and it may be
that this physical weakness woke all
the deep chlvalry and tenderness Of the
man. And be reaped a rich reward for
an almost unrivaled devotion in the
atmosphere Of love and happiness, and
inspiration" with which his delicate
wife always surrounded him.
The welded life OF Wordsworth with
his cousin. 1.-THE phantom Of delight"
was poem more exquisitely beautiful
than any his pen ever wrote. Mrs.
Wordsworth was never fair to look
upon, but she had that priceless and
rarer beauty of soul which made her
life "a center Of sweetness" to all
around her. "All that she has been to
me-" the poet once said in his latter
days, -"none but God and myself can
ever know" and it would be difficult
to find a more touching and beautiful
picture in the gallery Of great mems
lives than that OF Wordsworth and his
wife, both bowed under the burden of
mahy years and almost blind, walking
hand in hand together In the garden,
with all the blissful absorption and
tender confidence of youthful lovers.
1t never needed 1.-THE Welding touch
of great sorrow" to make the lives
of Archbishop TAFT and his devoted
wife "a perfect whole" Speaking OF
her many years after she had been
taken from him. he said, '"ro part from
her If only for a day. was a pain only
less Intense than the pleasures with
which / returned to her, and when
took her With me Il was one Of the
purest joys given to man to watch
/ the meeting between her and our chill
dren."
When David Livingstone had passed
his thirtieth birthday. With barely
thought for such "an indulgence as
woolug and wedding" he declared hu
morously that when he was a little
less busy he would send home an adj
vertlsement for a wife, preferably 4
decent sort Of widow" and yet so un.
consciously near was his fate that only
year. later he was introducing his
bride, Mary Moffat to the home he had
built, largely with his own hands, at
Mabotsa. From that "supremely hap
py hour" to the day when. eighteen
years later he received her "Iast faint
whisperings" at Shupanga. no man ever
had a more self sacrificing. brave. de-
voted wife than the missionary s
daughter. In fact. they were more like
two happy. light hearted children than
sedate married folk and under the
magic Of their merriment the hard
ships and dangers of life in the hea
of the dark continent were stripped OF
all their terrors.
Jean Paul Richter confessed that he
never even suspected the potentialltie:
Of human happiness until he met Caro-
line Mayer. that sweetest and moe
gifted of women" when he was fas
approaching his fortieth year, and the
he had no monopoly Of the resultal
happiness Is proved by his wife's dc
laration that Richter is the purest th'
holiest. the most godlike man that lives
TO be the wife OF such a maj
is the greatest glory that can fall to I
woman" while Of his wife Richte
once wrote. Il thought when I married
her that l had sounded the depths
human love, bat I have since realiz'
how unfathomable is the heart ID