The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-05

| that she counted II moment of triumph,
and, with very slight exercise of i'm
agination, one might see the flash of VIC
| tory in her already brilliant eyes, For
Stella was human, and in such con-
flict, where is the woman that would be
] content to come out second best? For
my part I do not think the game was
worth the candle. Swift unworthy
| of either of the women But woman
| love Is such a curious thing that it will
not brook the theft of a lover, no matter
| how insignificant the lover might be.
| And now that l can come to think of 1t
more carefully. / am satisfied that wom-
Ell are not alone In this quality of love-
man will fight for his stolen sweet
heart although that sweetheart might be
ever so un--- excuse me, madam, | was
about to forget my manners, and II you
will forgive me, I'll declare that no
mans sweetheart can be unworthy
Finally Swift did justice to Stella by
marrying her. but it was done in an
atrocious way, that is, secretly. So Sc
cretly indeed. that many writer's doubt
that the marriage was ever celebrated
The preponderance of evidence, however,
favors the fact of their marriage. Stella,
though Swift's wife. was to be no more
to him than she had been in all the past
a pure friend, q companion in reading
and the keeper of his house She was
wife In name only. For y years she
bore the brusqueness, the selfishness and
the madness of the man whom she so
Strangely loved. Someone has said that
she was 10 years dying" At last she
fell, crushed. broken-hearted.
AT her dying bedside Swift was heard
to say: "rll make it known, If you wish
it,; to which the dying woman said: 1T
is too late To what did he refer? Had
he suffered her to live the burden of her
life before a world that questioned her
purity. and this without his defense i?
Had she reminded him that their rela-
tionship after marriage had reflected
upon her as unworthy to be his wife in
reality? What was 1t that he would now
make known" If she wished It? Per-
haps 1t was the fact of the secret mar
riags, which he had not acknowledged
to the world. 1T Is too Late she said,
for I have borne the scorn of an equiv
ocal life, and a breaking heart until now,
and here's the end" Thus might one
pararhrase her dying words. 1T is too
late"
The unwillingness of Swift to declare
hus marriage with this lovely woman is
unaccountable. A reason has been hint
ed to explain their relationship after
marriage (Which relationship Swift him
self imposed. but it cannot be given
here To me 1t is insufficient, and the
only adequate reason that I can find lies
in the madness of the man.
Stella's body was buried at night, by
the light of torches, in the cathedral
of st. Patrick. Sir Walter Scott. in A
note in his biography OF Swift. mentions
that friend OF his in Dublin, has a
lock of Stella's hair enclosed in a paper''
on which Swift had written, only a.
woman's hair Upon this little line
Thackeray reflects thus: only a wom
ans hair; only love. only fidelity. only
purity. innocence. beauty: only the ten
derest heart in all the world stricken and
wounded. passed away now out of reach
of pangs of hope deferred. love insult
ed, and pitiless desertion only that lock
of hair left; and memory and remorse
for the guilty lonely wretch shuddering
over the grave of his victim"
OF course. remorse filled Swift's heart
and he began to write of her peerless
virtues, but she was gone. lust as
Thomas Carlyle. when Jane Welsh was
dead. extoIed her lovely life, but she
was gone. Or as Amos Barton, in George
Eliots famous story. apotheosized the
dead Mrs. Barton in heart rendering
sentences which she never heard in her
life of sacrifice. but her ears were dun
In death. So, Swift withheld the pansies
and rosemary from a beautiful woman
until they might be laid upon her grave
absolutely worthless to her. at Is too
late"
Swifts madness that had been accum-
ulating for years, was now fast ap-
preaching its horrible climax His room
in the deanery. I mean his sleeping
room, opened out upon a window of the
cathedral through which might have
shown the torchlights used at Stella's
burial but the mad man was removed
to another apartment where he CRASHED
his teeth and raved. He would now and
then rise to the fury Of an angered lion.
but towards the last settled imbecility
befell him, and the raging of sthe mad
man 0uieted down into revolving help