The parents of Susanne removed to Pesth whilst she was young, which
had the effect of somewhat shortening her scholastic training. But her
best education did not, therefore, cease. Her father, who, assisted
by her brother, conducted the _Pesth Hirlap_, having a rheumatic
affection of the hand, Susanne acted as his amanuensis, and became his
fellow-labourer and active helper. And when the printing of the
_Hirlap_ was suppressed, she herself took a considerable share in
the tedious task of copying it. It was not conducted on the ordinary
lines of a newspaper, either political or business, but was patriotic
in its character and aim. "Its object was to develop the national
constitution, by peaceable reform and construction, from within
outward." It has been said: "From the fifty-two countries into which
Hungary was divided were regularly received letters upon every
national interest--material, social, and intellectual. It was the
part of the younger Kossuth to answer these by leading articles,
elaborating principles, while his father and sister would make a
digest, and put into form the correspondence itself. Such labours
were a fitting occupation for her honest and magnanimous soul, and
a providential preparation for the duties of the last years of her
life."
When Susanne was about twenty years of age she married Rudolf
Meszlenyi, an untitled gentleman whose sister had married Louis
Kossuth. He was possessed of an estate which afforded a sufficient
income. The marriage appears--so far at any rate as regards its
highest purposes, a true union of heart and life--to have been a
singularly happy one. We have lately read of a distinguished English
lady who, on receiving a proposal of marriage after her own heart,
knelt down on the green turf and thanked God for the happiness brought
into her life. Susanne Meszlenyi, in speaking during her sad and
lonely widowhood of the high character of her husband, used to tell
how she loved, in after years, to go to pray in the chapel at Buda in
which she was married, and would kiss the very stones on which she
stood at the altar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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