She fainted when the orator had gone to his task; but her
fortitude did not forsake her until her beloved was out of danger of
being perturbed. That one authentic story is worth a hundred dramatic
tales of stagey heroism. And we must remember how the statesman repaid
the simple devotion of his wife. All his spare time was passed in her
company, and the quaint pair wandered in the woods like happy boy and
girl. Then, when the indomitable man had raised himself to be head of
the State, and was offered a peerage, he declined; but he begged that
his wife might be created countess in her own right. Could anything be
more graceful and courtly? "You are the superior," the first man in
England seemed to say; "and I am content to rejoice in your honours
without rivalling them." All the fanciful rhymes of the troubadours
cannot furnish anything prettier than that.
If we leave the Beaconsfields and the Chathams and come among less
exalted folk, we find that the same laws regulate happy marriages.
Confidence, generosity, unselfishness--that is all. In this beautiful
England of ours there are happy households which are almost
numberless. The good folk do not care for fame or power; their
happiness is rounded off and completed within their own walls, and
they live as the lordly Chatham lived when he was free from the ties
of place and Parliament.
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