he Baron and Baroness von Hollwede were not happily married.
The Baroness had intellect, spirit, aspiration, with an appreciation of all that was best in art, music and the world of thought. As to the Baron, he had drunk life's wine to the lees and pronounced the draft bitter. He was a heavy dragoon with a soul for foxhounds. Later, when gout got to twinging him, he contented himself with cards and cronies.
And then Destiny, like a novelist who does not know what to do with a character, sent him on an excursion across the River Styx.
This was a good move all round, and the only accommodating action in which the Baron ever had a part. He left a large estate, not being able to take it along.
There are two kinds of widows, the bereaved and the relieved. In India no widow is allowed to remarry. The canons of the Episcopal Church forbid any widow or widower to remarry whose former partner is living. A member of the Catholic Church who makes a marital mistake is not allowed to rectify it. Yet Nature, sometimes, as if to prove the foolishness of fearsome little man, justifies that of which man hotly disapproves.
To be a widow of thirty-six, fair of face and comely in form, to own a beautiful home and have an income greater than you can spend, and still not enough to burden you—what nobler ambition!
The Baroness had a little encumbrance—a son aged ten. I would like to tell of his career, but alas, of him history is silent, save that he was heir to some of his father's proclivities, grew up, became an army officer and passed into obscurity in middle life, dishonored and unsung.
Such a widow as the Baroness von Hollwede is not apt to mourn for long. She was courted by many, but it was Major Humboldt who found favor in her heart. I assume that all of my gentle readers have in them some of the saltness of time, so that details may safely be omitted—let imagination bridge the interesting gap.
The Major was a few years younger than the lady, but like the gallant gentleman that he was, he swore i' faith before the notary that they were of the same age, just as Robert Browning did when officially interrogated as to the age of Elizabeth Barrett. Thomas Brackett Reed avowed that no gentleman ever weighed over two hundred pounds, and I also maintain no gentleman ever married a woman older than himself.
The marriage of Major Humboldt and the Baroness von Hollwede was a most happy mating that fully justified the venture. The Major had done his work bravely in the Seven Years' War, and was now an attache of the King's Court—a man of means, of intellect, and of many strong and beautiful virtues. After the marriage he became known as Baron von Humboldt, and as to just how he succeeded to the noble title let us not be curious—his wife undoubtedly bestowed it on him, good and generous woman that she was.