Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-27

By the Bookl0per

ton" Gladstone and Palmerston."
"Conquistador" and, very recently,
Bonnet and Shawl" collection OF
biographical essays on the wives OF
some great men, ending with three
little burlesque essays on the imaginary
wives of some famous bachelors. On
the title page is quoted a stanza from
Longfellows Psalm of Life with the
change of the initial word:
wives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And. departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands Of time"
The real biographies have for their
subjects Jane Welsh Carlyle. Catherine
Gladstone. Mary Arnold, Mary Anne
Disraeli Emily Tennyson and Emily
Palmerston. The ideal ladies consid-
cred are Lady Muriel James, the wife
Henry James never had; Sophia Swim
burne, the barmaid the poet Swinburne
might have married, but did not. ana
Julie de Goncourt. the wife the two
brothers De Goncourt edmond and
Jules, who collaborated in all their
writings, married in COLLABORATION.
These three pieces of farce hardly seem
in place in the volume. though amusing
enough in themselves.
Il n
Mr.. Guedalla evidently holds the
traditional view that the most i'm
portant event Of woman's lie Is ner
marriage, or, at least, that this was
uno1estionably true of the Victorian
woman, He gives a dramatic word
picture of the marriage of each Of his
heroines. The essay on Jane Carlyle
begins: "The road from Templand to
Biggar and on to Edinburgh Is not
of unusual beauty. Even a solitary
postchaisc rolling along it late one
Autumn afternoon in 1926 could hard
ly make it beautiful, though perhaps
it seemed so to the pair inside. Yet
even that is doubtful, though they
had Just been married; since the
bridegroom, dissuaded with some eff
fort from the CHASTITY, though mex
pensive, project OF conveying his bride
by stagecoach and the no less en-
barrassing Gf more generous) design
of taking a young brother part OF the
way with them, had stipulated with
her that she should let him by the
road, as occasion serves, smoke three
cigars without criticism or reluctance,
as things essential to my perfect con-
tentment'" The essay on Catherine
Gladstone begins: THE air of 1899
was heavy with impending nuptials.
In the bright dawn of new reign
matrimony swept over England like a
genial epidemic, and the land was
loud with banns. For the Queens hand
was asked and given Disrael1
and his Mary Anne, Victoria and her
Albert, even Lord Palmerston and his
delicious Emily prepared for felicity
that season. - But the cloud Of
felicity hung nowhere lower or more
richly charged than over Hawarden.
where rumor positively announced a
double wedding" chat Of Catherine
Glynne and her sister to Gladstone
and Lord Lyttleton). Disraeli's mar
riage to his Mary Anne, Mrs. Wynd-
ham Lewis, is briefly announced:
when the house rose they married
at ST. Georges, Hanover Square, a
altar beside a bridegroom Of "a. Yet
who could say which of them was the
elder?" Mary Arnold, wife of Thomas
Arnold, master Of Rugby was also
older than her husband. They mar
ried in the gay Summer weeks Of
1920. She played her own part,
though. For brides of 80 united with
bridegrooms of Is may be relied on to
assert themselves" Lord Palmerston
and Emily, Lady Cowper, sister of
Lord Melbourne, were SIS and So, re-
spectively, when they were married
because they waited for the death of
Emily's husband. With Victoria as
Queen, persons as close to the throne
as Palmerston and Melbourne could
not afford to hurry matters matri-
monial. Theirs was perfect mar
riage, though marriage rarely crowns
a 80 years romance But their
romance was crowned by nearly 30
more of marriage"
4 X **
Fear" by John Rathbone Oliver,
Baltimore psychiatrist and author of
Victim and Victor" so much discussed
OF late, purports to be "the autobiogra-
covering of fiction, 1t Is really a dis
cussion by a specialist of the treatment
of a case Of nervous, almost mental,
breakdown. James Edwards, successful
business man and thorough materialist,
sitting at his Office desk one day, opens
a letter from an insurance company
which refuses to issue him additional
life insurance because of his high blood
pressure. Only two weeks before his
partner has died in his chair at a di-
rectors meeting from cerebral hemor-
rhage. These two circumstances, COM
ing together, are the cause of a fear
which quickly takes possession of his
whole mind and in a short time almost
destroys his physical health and mental
balance. "A sort of breathless tension
seemed to start from the center of his
body and spread slowly to the tips of
his fingers. He put his hand to his
forehead. The hand shook and his FORE
head was moist with little beads of
sweat. Then, for a moment, 1t seemed
to him as If he sensed something
a mysterious hostile something-still far
of, but beginning to move closer and
closer toward himself and bringing with
1t, nearer and nearer, feeling of i'm
pending calamity, of something unclear
yet appalling, that was going to happen
and that he was powerless to prevent
He stared around his Office Somehow
1t seemed strangely unfamiliar. Every
thing looked different" This deScrip-
ton must stir memories In all who have
experienced fear. And who has not?
James Edwards would have gone on to
complete catastrophe If his son had not
become aware OF change in his father
and felt interest enough to look into it.
Through his son, Edwards goes to
nursing home and makes the acquaint-
ance of the Fear-Hunter his doctor
This doctor has had his own fight with
Tear and other demons. which he does
not reveal but which has left its stig-
mata. At the conclusion of weeks of
treatment he honestly confesses to his
patient that he has no antidote for
fear. II know of some palliatives for
fear-something that for a time will
dissipate it perhaps, or hold it in check
l know Of some antidotes that will, In
part. relieve you of the poison that fear
has spread through your body and your
mind. But cure for fear?-Somethin
that will put stop to your fearing for
ever?-I know nothing of that kind
AS long as you are living. thinking
man your mind is open to fear" Yet