MRS. GARFIELD.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1068, 2 May 1882, Page 4

MRS. GARFIELD.

The domestic relations of the late President Garfield were of the happiest kind ; his wife was ®ot merely his ho jsekeeper and the .mother of his c ddren. hot an intellisent companion who helped him in his struggles with the world and contributed in no mean degree to his ultimate success, She was the daughter of an Ohio farmer and her maiden name was Lucretia Rudolph. She is described as being at 17 “ a quiet, thoughtful girl of singularly sweet and refined disposition, fond of study and reading, displaying much judgment in her choice of books.” Her disposition was amiable, her heart warm, and her mind capable of literary work and liberal expansion. She was well educated, and was keenly alive to the influences of the beautiful in nature and art, possessing that good sense which comes from a thoughtful appreciation o the duties and experiences of every day life. A letter which this lady wrote to her husband, President Garfield, has recently been published under the following circumstances. This letter was not intended by the amiable writer for the public, but, somehow or other, it fell into the hands of Hiram Bollege, who quoted it in a lecture which he delivered to the students of the college on “ President Garfield.” The extract which we give will show Mrs Garfield’s common sense estimation of work and duty. The idea is not new ; old George Herbert, expressed it in simple verse, long, long ago, when few people believed in it, and in later times Carlyle proclaimed it to the millions. Mrs Garfield, however, however, did more than talk about it —she exemplified it in her active, individual life. No wonder that Mr Garfield rose to the Presidential chair, under the genial influence and consolation of such a partner, and such a woman. One extract from Mrs Garfield’s letter cannot be read too often in the presence of young ladies of the present age. Mrs Garfield thus wrote to her husband : —I am glad to tell you that out of all the toil and disappointments of the summer just ended, I have risen sup to a victory ; that silence of thought .since you have been away' has won for any spirit a triumph. I read something like this the other day : ‘ There is no healthy thought without labour, and thought makes the labourer happy.’ Perhaps this is the way 1 have been able to climb up higher. It came to me one morning when 1 was making bread. I said to myself, ‘ Here lam compelled by an inevitable neqpesity to make our bread this summer. Why not consider it a pleasant occupation, and make it so by trying to see what perfect bread I can make ?’ It seemed like an inspiration, and the whole of life grew brighter. The very sunshine seemed flowing down through my spirit into the white loaves, and now 1 believe that my table is furnished with better bread than ever before; and this truth, old as creation, seems just now to have become fully mine—that I need not be the shrinking slave of toil, but its real master, making whatever I do yield me its best fruits. You have Been king of your work so long that maybe you will laugh at me for having lived so long without my erown, but 1 am too glad to have found it at all to be entirely disconcerted, even by your merriment. Now, I wonder if here does not lie the ‘ terrible wrong,’ or at least some of it, of which the woman suffragists complain. The wrongly educated woman thinks her duties a disgrace, and frets under them, or shirks them if she can. She sees man triumphantly pursuing his vocations, and thinks it is the kind of work he does which makes him grand and regnant; whereas it it not the kind of work at all, but the way in which and the spirit with which he does it.” — Prom a lecture on “ Wives of Men of Letters.”