His Announcement of His Marriage.
Here is the announcement of his marriage, written by himself and published in the Herald on June 1, 1840:
To the Readers of the "Herald"—Declaration of Love—Caught at Last—Going to Be Married—New Movement in Civilization.
I am going to be married in a few days. The weather is so beautiful—times are getting so good—the prospects of political and moral reforms so auspicious, that I cannot resist the divine instincts of honest nature any longer; so I am going to be married to one of the most splendid women in intellect, in heart, in soul, in property, in person, in manner, that I have yet seen in the course of my interesting pilgrimage through human life.
I cannot stop in my career. I must fulfil that awful destiny which the Almighty Father has written against my name, in the broad letters of life, against the wall of Heaven. I must give the world a pattern of happy wedded life, with all the charities that spring from a nuptial love.
In a few days I shall be married according to the holy rites of the most holy Catholic Church, to one of the most remarkable, accomplished, and beautiful young women of the age. She possesses a fortune. I sought and found a fortune—a very large fortune.
She has no Stonington shares, or Manhattan stock, but in purity and uprightness she is worth half a million of pure coin. Can any swindling bank show as much? In good sense and elegance, another half a million; in soul, mind, and beauty, millions on millions, equal to the whole specie of all the rotten banks in the whole world.
Happily, the patronage of the public to the Herald is nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum—almost equal to a President's salary. But property in the world's goods was never my object, Fame, public good, usefulness in my day and generation—the religious associates of female excellence—the progress of true industry—these have been my dreams by night and my desires by day.
In the new and holy condition into which I am about to enter, and to enter with the same reverential feelings as I would Heaven itself. I anticipate some signal changes in my feelings, in my views, in my purposes, in my pursuits. What they may be I know not; time alone can tell. My ardent desire has been through life to reach the highest order of human excellence by the shortest possible cut. Associated night and day, in sickness and in health, in war and in peace, with a woman of this highest order of excellence, must produce some curious results in my heart and feelings, and these results the future will develop in due time in the columns of the Herald.
Meantime I return my heartfelt thanks for the enthusiastic patronage of the public, both in Europe and in America. The holy estate of wedlock will only increase my desire to be still more useful. God Almighty bless you all.
JAMES GORDON BENNETT.