The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1910-09-17
A MISMATED POET
The Tardy Marriage Of Fltz-
gerald and Lucy Barton.
A UNION PlTlFUL, YET COMIC

The Couple Were Utterly uusuitsd "a
One Another and He Fled From Her
During the Honsymoon--A Reunion
That Failed to Rsunits.
The Incidents leading up to and those
following the marriage Of Edward
Fitzgerald. translator OF the Omar
Khayyam" were Of ludicrous and nj
the same time somewhat serious char
Rcter Mr.. Francis Gribble gave the
facts in the Fortnightly Review:
1.-The Lucy Barton story is very pitt
ful. but It Is also rather comic. She
was a Quaker's daughter, who had
Joined the Church Of England as a
means. one imagines. Of climbing the
social ladder. and she was just the
sort Of person whom Fitzgerald would
esteem. but detest-prim. pious. me-
thodlcal fussy. not quite lady and
yet In a weird provincial way world
~. the sort Of person TO whom It seems
equally important TO teach In the Sun
day school and TO be a leader Of so
elety.
Fitzgerald and she bad known each
other for the greater part Of their
lives and were both nearly ffty years
Of age when marriage overlook them.
he did not even know that he was en-
gagged to her But she told him that he
was. and he was too polite to contra
dict her
"PoIiteness only broke down when.
after the ceremony, she assumed pro-
pictorial airs and insisted that her
husband should pay afternoon calls
with her and dress for dinner. That
was the last straw, though very likely
it was also the first.
Fitzgerald supposed apparently that
In marrying Lucy Barton be had mere
" acquired housekeeper who would
know her place who would confne
her new dignity to her housekeeper's
room. leaving him as free as Of old TO
slop about in slippered ease, unkempt
unshaven, enveioped in dressing
gown until the evening. With books
all over the floor pipes all over the
manteipiece and tobacco ash all over
hts clothes.
1T would not have mattered, of
course. II he had married for love and
II his bride had been woman of
grace and charm. Such one would
have changed all that like fairy wav-
ing a magic wand. But Fitzgerald had
only married to obllge. and Mrs. FItz-
gerald was not In the least like a. fairy,
She was more like a female drill SER
geant conventional, stiff and starched.
vet with pretensions.
Her flow Of fussy small talk was
nuisance. and her interruption of Fitz-
gerald's medltations with the demand
that he should shave and wear clean
linen assumed the proportion of a
tragedy in bis eyes.
HE stood 1t for fortnight aud then
ded, leaving the honeymoon unfinished,
going of to stay with friends, boiling
like rabbit for Its burrow.
There were a reunion and an at
tempt at reconciliation, but in vain
FItzgerald's letters to his friends at
this period are li1e the letters home OF
a boy who Is being bullied at school,
81 believe, he writes to Professor
Cowell, there are new channels fretted
In my cheeks with many unmanly
tears. and there really IS no evidence
that he had anything to cry about be-
yond the fact that he was being hus-
tied out Of comfortable dressing
gown into starched shirt with high (
collars.
"That fact was symbolieal Of the
general discrepancy Of tastes and /
points OF view. SO we find him writ.
ing again. Till see better how we get
on dare fix on no place to live or die
In, and then before long came definite
separation and the drafting Of deed
Of settlement
"Fitzgerald. 1t is said. used long aft
arward to walk up and down a certain
garden path for hours together calling
himself fool. and when in later years
be met his wife again he FIRST put out \
bis hand and then changed his mind
and turned his back"