The Arena, Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891Various
General
The Arena, Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891
Various
American literature -- Periodicals
Another very interesting personage in the Sioux Falls Divorce Colony,
is Mrs. James G. Blaine, Jr., now living in a cosy cottage on the
fashionable avenue with her sister, Miss Nevins, her son, James G.
Blaine, 3d, and her maids. When Marie Nevins, piquantly pretty, witty,
and accomplished, made a stolen match with the ungreat son of one of
America's greatest political figures, she little dreamed what the
hands of the Fates--who are sometimes the Furies--were spinning for
her; yet she wears her robes of sorrow with some of that grace of
patience which comes to her sex like an instinct born of centuried
servitude. How her husband ever fascinated so fascinatingly elusive a
creature is a mystery to all who know him and a miracle to all who
know her; but who has ever guessed the riddle of a woman's heart?
Surely no man yet known to the world, except possibly Balzac, and he
only occasionally by some sort of electric, psychological accident.
The true story of Mrs. Blaine's infelicities has been carefully hidden
from the public, although some superserviceable, would-be friends have
now and then busied themselves with starting absurd rumors, as if for
the fun of contradicting them; for instance, a precious yarn spun
lately to the effect that Mrs. Blaine, senior, looked down on her
daughter-in-law as not aristocratic enough to have married a Blaine.
How intrinsically absurd is such an idea in connection with a family
as close to what Lincoln called "the plain people"--and as really
proud of so being--as that of the famous Republican leader! Blaine is
a man so thoroughly democratic that only a very stupid enemy of his
could have invented such a piece of self-convicting nonsense; for if
aristocracy entered into the question, Mrs. James G. Blaine, Jr.,
could make a better showing than her spouse, since, if it confers any
_quasi_-patent of nobility in this country to have a distinguished
father, it must give a larger halo of social splendor to have a
distinguished grandfather, etc., etc. Now, Mrs. Blaine, Jr., had a
grandsire who was a power in his day, a forceful, brilliant man,
Samuel Medary, who was successively governor of three States, Ohio,
Kansas, and Minnesota. Mrs. Blaine, Jr., apart from her marital
misfortunes, deserves much sympathy for her physical fate. Just lately
her leg was broken again and her surgeons fear that her lameness must
be perpetual. Yet the talk about her going on the stage has some
basis, and no one who ever talked with her, and enjoyed the prismatic
play of her facial expression and the flexions of her vibrant voice,
could doubt her fitness for certain popular roles. Nor need her
lameness defeat her of success. A play of mingled pathos and humor
could be written for a lame heroine. One excellent writer has offered
to do it, and Hamlin Garland could do it excellently. Balzac in his
marvellous book, "The Alkahest," declares that she is blest among
women, who, having some great bodily defect, nevertheless wins a man's
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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