Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1904-03-03
TRIBUTES TO WIVES
WORDS OF TENDERNESS UTTERED
BY GREAT MEN.

OT 0hCNt WCN.
rhe noma &c That Tom Hood Paid to
the Partner Of His Sorrows and
J0ys-Jean Paul Richtcr's Unstint.
ed Praise of Casoline Mayer.
Few great men have paiA more en-.
thuslastic tributes to their wives than
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 I plead guilty, for
never was a wooer SO young Of heart
and so STEPPED in love as I, but 1t is a
love sanctifed and strengthened BY
long years Of experience. May God
ever bless my darling, the sweetest,
most helpful, angel who ever stopped
to bless a manw Has there ever, we
wonder, lived a wife 10 whom a more
delicate and beautiful tribute was paid
than those verses Of which the burden
Is, IL love thee, love thee; IT'S all that
Gun say?'
81 want thee much" Nathaniel Haw.
thorne 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 am only myself
when thou art within my reach. Thou
art an unspcakably beloved woman"
Sophia Hawthorne was little better
than Il chronic invalid. and 1t may be
that this physical weakness woke all
the deep chvalry and tenderness Of the
man. And he renped rich reward for
an almost lnrivaled 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 pha Of delight"
was a 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
me-" the poet once said in his LETTER
days, none but God and myselY can
ever know" and it would be difficult
to find 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
many years and almost blind. walking
hand in hand together in the garden,
with all the blissfu absorption and
tender confidence of youthful lovers.
1t never needed "the welding touch
of a 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. 10 part IRON.
her, if only for day. was n pain only
less intense than thS pleasures with
which I returned to her. and when
took her with me X was one of the
purest joys given 10 a man TO watch
the meeting between her and our chill
dren.'
When David Livingstone had passed
his thirtieth birthday. with barely a
thought for such IAN indulgence as
wooing and wedding" he declared hui.
morously that when he was little
less busy he would send home an ad.
vertisament for wife. "preferably a
decent sort Of widow" and yet SO un.
consciously near was his fate that only
n year later he was introducing his
bride, Mary Mof'at. 10 the home he had
built, largely with his own hands. at
Mabotsa. From that 'suprcnely hap
by hour" to the day when, eighteen
years later, he received her last faint
whisperings" at Shupanga. no man ever
had more self sacrificing. brave. de-
voted wife than the missionary's
daughter. In fact, they were more Ike
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 heart
of the dark continent were stripped of
all their tnrrors.
Jean Paul Richter confessed that he
never even suspected the potentallties
Of human happiness until he met Caro-
line Mayer. that sweetest and most
gifted Of women" when he was fast
approaching his forteth year, and that
he had 10 monopoly OF the resultant
happiness is proved by bis wifes dec
laration that Richter IS the purest the
hottest. the most godlike man that lives;
- to be the wife Of such a man
Is the greatest glory that can fall to q
woman" while OF his wife Richter
once wrote. Il thought when l married
her that had sounded the depths Of
human love. but have since realized
bow unfathomable is the heart IN