30 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



This sorrow passed away in the establishment of a home 

 of his own. On October 24, 1840, Dr. Carpenter was 

 married at Exeter, to Louisa Powell. Her father, who had 

 died during her girlhood, had been a well-known merchant 

 in the city ; her mother was a daughter of Henry Cort, 

 whose invention of iron-puddling, though it brought ruin 

 to himself, proved the source of enormous wealth to the 

 English nation. In the little house on Kingsdown, at the top 

 of a steep flight of steps leading up from the square below, 

 and commanding a splendid view of the valley in which 

 lay the busy city with its towers and spires, its factory 

 chimneys, and the masts of its shipping, there was planted 

 the beginning of a happiness which grew with deepening 

 experience through five and forty years. A certain quaint- 

 ness marked the arrangements of the little morning room, 

 where the young wife saw behind her husband's chair, at 

 the other end of the table, a human skeleton set up erect. 

 There was never any other. From first to last they lived 

 in undivided trust. 



Round the home gathered many intellectual and social 

 interests. Music brightened it continually. . This had 

 been always a favourite taste, almost a passion. When the 

 Medical Society at Edinburgh had celebrated its centenary 

 in 1837, William Carpenter, then its senior president, on 

 whom devolved the duty of delivering the oration of the 

 day, had lamented that it debarred him from sharing in 

 the vocal entertainment which followed the feast : " a 

 "number of the members, with Dr. Christison at their head, 

 " got up some capital glees. I could not join in this, as I 

 " had not time for previous practising." There was more 

 time now, in the intervals between lecturing and literary 

 work. With the fruits of one of his prize-essays he had 

 purchased an organ, in Edinburgh ; it was regarded by his 

 family as a kind of idol, and bore the familiar name ot 



