Beautiful are the hands of wife, sister, man or friend which have directed, lead and lifted us by pitfall, through marsh and despair to mount the height on which we stand—hands perfumed with prayer, baptized with tears, clasped with affection, and generous with charity.
The man ought to be horsewhipped who uses the words “hard,” “homely,” “unmanicured,” of the hands of a father, calloused that they might give daily bread; hands of a mother, blistered and aching for work never done until they are crossed white in the coffin and God gives them rest; baby hands which twine around the trellis of our hearts and are unclasped by Death.
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Another “international marriage” has gone the way of many spectacular predecessors—through the divorce mill.
In this it is hardly noteworthy. Experience and commonsense alike indicate that such unions rarely can be successful. The base allurements of a British title on one side and American gold on the other, are not the sources in which wholesome happiness finds its inspiration.
But in quite another way there is something worth noting in the divorce proceedings through which Consuelo Vanderbilt has freed herself, at last, from the disreputable ninth duke of Marlborough. It is the revelation, through her simple letters, of the true nobility of birth which does not rest upon a “Burke’s Peerage” or an “Almanach de Gotha.”
Miss Vanderbilt married this highly decorated fortune hunter in 1895. Two children were born to them. For their sakes the American wife, with womanly reserve, suffered much indignity during many years. Eventually driven to a separation, she still endured in silence, without resort to the unsavory publicity of divorce, reflecting upon her growing sons.
These children came of age last winter. The wife then made a last brave effort toward reconciliation. There was a brief reunion—ending in a disgraceful visit of the 45-year-old duke to Paris with a 25-year-old female companion.
Blood will tell—the plain American kinds and likewise the tainted blue sort that trickles through “noble” veins.
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