Year: 1864

o pleasant little history Of the mar
riage oftwo persons whose union has,
to their many lovers in England and
America, seemed symbol of music
welded to immortal verse. Itwas told
10 me by one whose relation to the lit
erary career of both was almost pater-
nal, and is one that may be properly
retold, If can do it without profaning
noble names. Therefore let me call
one Of these Geraldine and the other
Valence. Out on the hills just beyond
London, in the direction Of Croydon,
wherc DR.. Johnson loved to walk,
Thomas Carlyle was strolling some
thirty years ago when he encountered
a young, broad -browed, blue-eyed, and
altogether handsome young man, with
whom he entered into conversation -
"When left him." said Carlyle, it
was with the conviction that he was
the most superior young man then
about London, and one who had some
thing TO say" This was Valence; and
not many years after this two or three
strange and powerful poems appeared
which justified the opinion of the great
iconoclast, The minds to which those
poems appealed were few, but they
were of the first class, and their re-
sponse was ardent. Meanwhile there
returned from India, where he had
been in her Majesty's service, q GER
tain physician, who was known by
those who became his neighbors only
as a morose, unsocial, and irasciblc old
man, whose slightest word was as the
laws of the Medes and Persians to the
few who belonged to his household
His family, indeed, consisted Of him
self and a daughter This daughter
Geraldinc-was singularly gifted, but
had been an invalid from early child
hood through spinal disease. What
little recuperativo power her frame
might have possessed had also been
resisted by deep and continued mel
ancholy resulting from the early death
of an only brother by drowning, an
accident with which her imagination in
some sad way connected herself So
when Geraldine came to London it
was to recline upon her lonely couch
from day to day, with no prospect Of
ever rising from it, with no compan-
ions but books. Her father, indeed,
stearnly prohibited the entrance ofany
one to the house. Years passed on
thus, and the lady had become a good
scholar with her books; and, moreover,
had sent out works which were stirring
the hearts of men and women through
out the world with feelings which
had slept for need of just such voices
as were intrusted to her. But these
echoes Of awakened and thrilled hearts
rarely reached the ears of the silent
and secluded invalid. Amongst the
many who We're thrilled by the high
strains of Geraldine was Valence, and
he resolved that be would know this
related soul. He remembered that he
had once met gentleman who was
Geraldine's uncle, and to him he wrote
to inquire ifthere were not some way
in which he could obtain an introduc-
tion to her. This uncle was absent
from home when the note from Valence
arrived, but on his return few days
afterward he wrote in reply that an in
PRODUCTION to his niece was quite i'm
possible-that she was guarded even
from her relatives by dragon. Mean
while Valence had resolved to wait no
longer for the uncle's reply, but go
himself and ask for an interview
The servant whe met him at the
door had taken too much beer; he saw
double, or at least he saw in Valence
the double of the physician himself,
and admitted him to the library, when
the lady was reclining. She was as
tonished as by an apparition, but new
ertheless q conversation ensued which
opened the way to future visits. One
day the father encountered the visitor
in the hall, and Immediately and with
anger commanded his daughter that
she should, when he next came, de-
cline to receive Valance in future
When Valance came again, Geraldine,
without concealing her grief, told him
what had occurred, Then the young
man arose and asked her if she would
follow him. From the sofa, Geraldine,
who for so many years had never sat
up once, arose and followed the will
had made the spine as strong as itself
the touch Of the knight had broken
the spell of disease, and with him she
,ratked nearly mile; thence they were
driven to a church, and married. The
next day the couch and the library
were q pictureless frame the London
fog was o distant cloud; and, with
Frightening skicsand favoring breeses,
the two were fastening southwark
Infolded by love, breathed on by the
gentle skies Of Italy, Geraldine was
born into a new and happy planet
| At Florence she found at least the por.
tai to the bower which in her child
hoods dream she had found and lost,
Until one day she bade Valence farewell
and entered its full glories. The other
I day | saw Valence strollihg again
where he stroled when youth; now
with white silken hair, r,'tut with no
bier beauty on his brow, By his side
walked fine, earnest boy, in whom
Geraldine still remains to remind him
of that poem which together they
liued, and which alone surpasses in
beauty any that either of them have
written.