第116章 COMPANIONSHIP IN MARRIAGE.(13)

Many other similar truehearted wives rise up in the memory, to recite whose praises would more than fill up our remaining space--such as Flaxman's wife, Ann Denham, who cheered and encouraged her husband through life in the prosecution of his art, accompanying him to Rome, sharing in his labours and anxieties, and finally in his triumphs, and to whom Flaxman, in the fortieth year of their married life, dedicated his beautiful designs illustrative of Faith, Hope, and Charity, in token of his deep and undimmed affection;--such as Katherine Boutcher, "dark-eyed Kate," the wife of William Blake, who believed her husband to be the first genius on earth, worked off the impressions of his plates and coloured them beautifully with her own hand, bore with him in all his erratic ways, sympathised with him in his sorrows and joys for forty-five years, and comforted him until his dying hour--his last sketch, made in his seventy-first year, being a likeness of himself, before making which, seeing his wife crying by his side, he said, "Stay, Kate! just keep as you are; I will draw your portrait, for you have ever been an angel to me;"--such again as Lady Franklin, the true and noble woman, who never rested in her endeavours to penetrate the secret of the Polar Sea and prosecute the search for her long-lost husband--undaunted by failure, and persevering in her determination with a devotion and singleness of purpose altogether unparalleled;--or such again as the wife of Zimmermann, whose intense melancholy she strove in vain to assuage, sympathizing with him, listening to him, and endeavouring to understand him--and to whom, when on her deathbed, about to leave him for ever, she addressed the touching words, "My poor Zimmermann! who will now understand thee?"Wives have actively helped their husbands in other ways. Before Weinsberg surrendered to its besiegers, the women of the place asked permission of the captors to remove their valuables. The permission was granted, and shortly after, the women were seen issuing from the gates carrying their husbands on their shoulders.

Lord Nithsdale owed his escape from prison to the address of his wife, who changed garments with him, sending him forth in her stead, and herself remaining prisoner,--an example which was successfully repeated by Madame de Lavalette.

But the most remarkable instance of the release of a husband through the devotion of a wife, was that of the celebrated Grotius. He had lain for nearly twenty months in the strong fortress of Loevestein, near Gorcum, having been condemned by the government of the United Provinces to perpetual imprisonment. His wife, having been allowed to share his cell, greatly relieved his solitude. She was permitted to go into the town twice a week, and bring her husband books, of which he required a large number to enable him to prosecute his studies. At length a large chest was required to hold them. This the sentries at first examined with great strictness, but, finding that it only contained books (amongst others Arminian books) and linen, they at length gave up the search, and it was allowed to pass out and in as a matter of course. This led Grotius' wife to conceive the idea of releasing him; and she persuaded him one day to deposit himself in the chest instead of the outgoing books. When the two soldiers appointed to remove it took it up, they felt it to be considerably heavier than usual, and one of them asked, jestingly, "Have we got the Arminian himself here?" to which the ready-witted wife replied, "Yes, perhaps some Arminian books." The chest reached Gorcum in safety;the captive was released; and Grotius escaped across the frontier into Brabant, and afterwards into France, where he was rejoined by his wife.

Trial and suffering are the tests of married life. They bring out the real character, and often tend to produce the closest union.

They may even be the spring of the purest happiness.