DE LESSEPS AND HIS WIFE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2745, 10 January 1882, Page 2

DE LESSEPS AND HIS WIFE.

Ferdinand de Lesseps, it is said, has been an Othello, : though ■ without the miserable ill- luck of Shakespeare’s swarthy hero. Like Othello, he won his present wife by the narration of his adventures arid dangers. M. dc Lesseps is'now on the. verge of eighty, but 19 spite of. his great age;,he retains the hopefulness and freshness of youth. At the age of sixty-eight M. de Lesseps was left a widower, and had t a, troop ,of grown up sons and daughters. Some few, years after it was reported, to the rimazenijent of the AVofld, ; tn’attpp‘lively septuagenarian had married a' a - young Creole maiden of • fstopishing beauty, who has since brought him s ! x children. In a certain Parisian family where,M. de Lesseps of ten visited, there iw'as (/bevy of five sisters. The old man delighted to gather them around him and relate stirring episodes from his travels. One day, while speaking ,of.his experience in Palestine, he said he had undergone great dangers rind difficulties apiQUg the Arabs, because they could not conceive how a man could -live without a wife. The "prettiest of the sisters innocently asked : “ Why, then, do you not marry; again ?’’ “ Because, I am 100 old," replied M. de •‘ Besides, he. added, “if I were to‘fall in love with a young girl, it would be absurd to think she would fall in I6ve With nib. ‘ “'Who knows,!” observed his questioner. , Les- ! seps told his young listeners about the rose of Jeiicho, which, after being dried and placed in water again, bursts out jnto bloom. . Soon afterwards he obtained one of these roses, and presented it to the young girl.~ In a few days she appeared with the re-blossomed'rose in her' "hand, -which she gave to the honored guest, saying at the same time “See'what a miraolo the water has effected Upon the rose; it is the blossoming of love in old age.’’ Their eyes met, and M. de Less Cps, bolieving that his Desdemona bad a meaning in what She" said, quietly said “If you -really think that you dare venture to share; the remaining,years, of an old man, here is my hand.'* But for his marriage it is very, uncertain whether the bold projector would have undertaken bis laborious task at Panama. She js always at his side, .and has,, been his chief help and support throughout his arduous conflicts with politicians, moneylenders, engineers, ana laborers.