HIS WIFE. 



101 



friendship the greatest source to me, 

 both of happiness and improvement, 

 [and misery to her husband ?] dur- 

 ing many years in which we never 

 expected [while the husband lived] 

 to be in any closer relation to one 

 another" (p. 240). Neither seems 

 to have had the courage, whatever 

 might have been their inclination, to 

 brave the law of society altogether, 

 or the law of the land, which makes 

 itself respected, whether people be- 

 lieve in the existence of God, or the 

 law of God, or the laws of society 

 or not. 



" Ardently as I should have aspired 

 to this complete union of our lives at 

 any time in the course of my existence 

 at which it had been practicable [he 

 waited nineteen long years, and then 

 took nearly two to make up his mind], I, 

 as much as my wife, would far rather 

 have foregone that privilege for ever than 

 have owed it to the premature death of 

 one [he was certainly in the way] for 

 whom I had the sincerest respect, and 

 she the strongest affection. [How con- 

 siderate and disinterested they were !] 

 That event, however, having taken 

 place in July, 1849, it was granted to 

 me to derive from that evil [?] my own 

 greatest good, by adding to the partner- 

 ship of thought, feeling and writing 

 which had long existed, a partnership 

 of our entire existence " (p. 240). [He 

 that excuses accuses himself, as the pro- 

 verb runs.] ' For seven and a half 

 years that blessing was mine ; for seven 

 and a half only ! I can say nothing 

 which could describe, even in the 

 faintest manner, what that loss was and 

 is " (p. 240). " Her memory is to me a 

 religion, and her approbation the stan- 

 dard by which, summing up as it does 

 all worthiness, I endeavour to regulate 

 my life" (p. 251). [Nothing more 

 could have been said of her had she 

 been a divinity.] 



She died at Avignon on the 3d 

 of November, 1858, and over her 

 grave was placed the following epi- 

 taph : 



" Her great and loving heart, her no- 

 ble soul, her clear, powerful, and com- 

 prehensive intellect, made her the guide 

 and support, the instructor in wisdom, 

 and the example in goodness, as she 



was the sole earthly delight [!] of those 

 who had the happiness to belong to her. 

 As earnest for all public good as she 

 was generous and devoted to all who 

 surrounded her, her influence has been 

 felt in many of the greatest improve- 

 ments of the age, and will be in those 

 still to come. [What were they ?] 

 Were there even a few hearts and intel- 

 lects like hers, this earth would already 

 become the hoped-for heaven." 



The writer ii\ the Edinburgh Re- 

 view, alluded to, makes the follow- 

 ing very just remark : 



" Of the lady herself, who is thus 

 placed on the pinnacle of all excellence 

 by her enthusiastic lover, we can only 

 say that nobody else, that we have ever 

 heard of, amongst those who knew her, 

 discovered in her these lofty gifts." 



It would have been interesting to 

 have known what kind of epitaph 

 her first husband would have put 

 on her tombstone, had he survived 

 her. So deficient does Mill seem to 

 have been in looking at two sides 

 not to say all sides of a question, 

 and so devoid of any kind of reli- 

 gion, or really moral or manly sensi- 

 bility, that the idea of his idol get- 

 ting tired of him and casting him 

 adrift, for some other attraction or 

 " affinity," does not appear to have 

 entered his imagination. Had she 

 treated him in that way he would 

 probably have poisoned, hanged, or 

 in some way made away with him- 

 self, as he seems to have contem- 

 plated doing when in the " crisis of 

 his mental history." 



It is very strange that a man of 

 Mill's education, reading, and en- 

 dowments, should, at such a mature 

 age, have put such extravagant lan- 

 guage on record in regard to his 

 wife, who must have been known to 

 many besides himself. He doubt- 

 less never heard of anything like it 

 connected with any human being; 

 and the idea never seems to have oc- 

 j curred to him to ask what the world 

 would think of it, or what is its 

 estimate of epitaphs in general. 

 His course indicated either the 



