WIVES WHO HELPED.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16174, 27 December 1924, Page 19 (Supplement)

WIVES WHO HELPED.

CLEVER WOMEN WHO TAMED GENIUSES.

It would be an illuminating if uncongenial task to count the number of unhappy marriages recorded in "Dictionary of National Biography." The wives of men of genius are set a task of most evident difficulty. On reflection it is surprising how mar,y notable examples there are of unions which have remained - happy and in which the-wife can be said to share equally, if sometimes obscurely, the achievements of her husband. Politics and Poetry.

In the next division are the wives who, while not actually sharing the intellectual labours of their husbands, have been in the truest sense helpmates. They have provided a background of sympathetic companionship, of comfort, and of encouragement. Such were Mrs Garrick, Mrs Gladstone, Lady Tennyson, Lady Beaconsfield. I think, too, in this category should be placed Mrs Boswell. To provide a counter-attraction to Fleet Street and the Johnsonian circle must have exercised all the 1 wit of woman.

Lastly there are the wives whose task has been to curb the wild spirits, the extravagances -, and to check the peccadilloes of their husbands. "Prue," nee Miss Scurlock, wife of Sir Richard Steele, is one of these. There are few more charming essays in the English language than that in which Austin Dobson pictured the relationship of these delightful people. I hesitate to place Mrs Pepys amongst these, and yet there can be little doubt that, in her childish way,' she did limit the adventures of her lord. The affair of'Deborah, for instance, would have come to a less satisfactory conclusion if she had not turned that attractive hussy out of the house. Her storms and her petulance undoubtedly made the amorous path of Pepys more difficult to tread. The most common run of' happy marriages, however, are undoubtedly those in which, the wife consciously supplements her husband's life j ' with understanding and affection. You interpret so indulgently what I mean (wrote Gladstone -to his wife, two years after their marriage) about the necessity of quiescence at home during a Parliamentary session, that

I need not say much . . . there is no man however near to mo with whom I am fit to be habitually. I have told you how reluctant I have always found myself to detail to my father on coming home, when I lived with him, what had been going on in the House of Commons. Setting a tired mind to work is like making a man run up and down stairs when his limbs are weary.

iVlrs Gladstone. What married man has not been grateful to his wife when, after a hard day, she has curbed her affectionate curiosity of his doings? Mrs Gladstone in many ways stands as a model wife, and accounts of her husband's comfort, her advice, her protection of his privacy through nearly sixty years can be read in Morley's Life. A gay little scene is recorded on her eightieth britiuiay:— He had bought a present of silver for his wife. She tried to guess the price, and after the manner of wives in such a case, put the figure provokingly low. Mr G. then put on the deprecating airs of the tradesman with wounded feelings—and ir, was as capital fun as we could desire.