d not draw him away from his devotion to this good
woman. He never neglected her in the smallest way. His attentions were
as pointed and courtly in her last days as when they were bright-faced
boy and girl, lovers and cousins, in the twenties. During his labors in
the constitutional convention of 1877, he one day wore upon his lapel a
flower she had placed there, and stopping in his speech, paid fitting
tribute to the pure emblem of a woman's love. A man of great deeds and
great temptations, of great passions and of glaring faults, he never
swerved in loyalty to his wedded love, and no influence ever divided his
allegiance there. Writing to her on May 15, 1853, while he was United
States Senator, he says:

MY DEAR JULIA:

This is your birthday, which you bid me remember, and this
letter will show you that I have not forgotten it. To-day
Gus Baldwin and Dr. Harbin dropped in to dinner, and we
drank your good health and many more returns in health and
happiness of the 15th of May. I did not tell them that you
were forty, for it might be that some time or other you
would not care to have them know it, and I am sure they
would never suspect it unless told. In truth I can scarcely
realize it myself, as you are the same lovely and loving,
true-hearted woman to me, that you were when I made you my
bride, nearly twenty-three years ago. There is no other
change except the superior loveliness of the full blown
over the budding rose. I have thrown my mind this quiet
Sunday evening over that large segment of human life
(twenty-three years) since we were married, and whatever of
happiness memory has treasured up clusters around you. In
life's struggle I have been what men call fortunate. I have
won its wealth and its honors, but I have won them by
labor, and toil, and strife, whose memory saddens even
success; but the pure joys of wedded love leave none but
pleasant recollections which one can dwell upon with
delight. These thoughts are dearer to me than to most men,
because I know for whatever success in life I may have had,
whatever evil I may have avoided, or whatever good I may
have done, I am mainly indebted to the beautiful, pure,
true-hearted little black-eyed girl, who on the 18th of
November, 1830, came trustingly to my arms, the sweetest
and deares