Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1881 — DOMESTIC DISCORD. [ARTICLE]

DOMESTIC DISCORD.

Pacts Concerning Edwin Booth’s Second Marriage. 3i. Y. Cor. Boston Herald. Edwin Booth took for his second wile (his first wife, to whom he was devotedly attracted, was Mary Devlin, an actress well anc] favorably known in Boston) Mary Ruonion, called Mary McVicker, daughter of die present Mrs. McVicker by a previous union, and the step-daughter of J. H. McVicker, the theatrical manager of Chicago. Bhe was then 19—he being sixteen years her senior—and had been, notwithstanding her youth, for some time on stage. Tne first time she saw him she fancied she loved him, and doubtless she did, .for it seems fr6m ail accounts to Lave been a plain of love at first sight. They afterward played together, notably in “Romeo and Juliet” aCtho opening of his theater in this city, and this circumstance naturally augmented her romantic pission and inspired him with reciprocity. Soon after that they were married at Long Branch, and hundreds of women who had had one-sided sentimental attachments for the handsome and- gifted actor were indignant because he had chosen a wife from the pro session .when he might have had one from what they considered the first circles of society. No man of the time has awakened to such an extent as Booth has a tender interest In the feminine breast. It was natural enough that he should awaken such interest, because he personated Hamlet as no other living actor could personate and his character is aS singular and as attractive in a way as that of the Danish Prince. Numberless women throughout ths.Uuion, notglly ta Borton, had for years made themselves ridiculous about him, bad sent him flowers and mementoes, had written him amorous letters by the dozen without exciting the slightest interest or curiosity in nis, to them, obdurate heart. Edwin Booth is What, regretably, comparatively few men are—a constitutional monogamist. With active sympathies, warm affections, intense emotions, he is incapable of galautry, in the common import, and has never had, to use the popular euphemism any affairs of the heart. Extremely retiring and domestic by temperament, he looks for the highest sympathy, for sexual companionship, only in a wife and home. This sort of sympathy and companionehip he had secured, all his friends say, in. his first wife, but missed in his second wife from incompatibility of disiKisition. The passionate love she felt for him at the start continued with out abatement; but her mani estation of it was not always congenial to him. She was an exceedingly nervous organization, indeed her nerves tyranized over her completely ;she was as restless as quicksilver, and excitable to the last degree. He, on the contrary, is variable, often moody—artistic natures generally are so—foud of study and relaxation by turns, inclined to reticence introspection and waking dreams. He had no understanding of such a nature, and consequently little patience with it. To her he seemed indifferent to everything,wholly indolent.and all her energy, which was boundless, was employed to rouse him out of what she regarded as his laziness and lethargy. He wanted, in brief, to be left to himself, and she was resolved he should never be left to himself. She deemed it her wifely duty to keep him mentally active, in her sense of mental activity, and, in her ceaseless effort to his end, she-tired and tormented him more or less, evets’ hour of the day. He was seldom, if ever, irritable to her, despite the continual nagging; he was generally amiable, passive, calm, philosophic, and she labored to injure i>im with her ardent agitation. She Was bent on making hino over again, after her image, and he would have been but too happy to be allowed to remain in nis own. She constantly etarged;him with lack of ambition, and ' her unflagging endeavor was to supply this lack. She was a great to help hi m in all business matters (she was oractical, while he was poetic), and these she usually managed thinking herself, jnstly, the more competent of the two. But in the closet and tenderer relations 'pt life, tn whatever savors of affinity, and true comradeship, they were, notwithstanding her donmant low auu his chivalrous loyalty, spiritually separated. They could not coalesce. Her loVe was too intense, to mastering, to ibe even or wholesome. She was selfish n it. She was addicted to jealousy without tbe slightest cause or pre; of cause. Her jealousy was not of women more than of men. She hated everybody who occupied any part of his time or attention, and her moods were ‘often frenzied. a- To the v*-ry close he*was as devoted to her, as solicitous for her bes* couditM>u r as he had.been from the first. It i|4fltipeamble.for any man allied to a woman by a marriage wanting in competences to have been more tender, more loyal, more generous than was Edwin Booth. The report of their separation, caused by a disagreement about property, was widely printed a few week’s before the poor lady’s death, but had nd morejoundation than other slanders echoed by the press. IS he had separated herself from him, in her inaaDfty,' unwillingness to see him; but he had long understood her unfortunate infirmity, and plttied her profoundly therefor. There may have oeen some ■WtoagreemeDt concerning financial ques tioiu,. because in the event of Mrs. Boeck’s death, the whole, or part, of what he had given her—and he had been very liberal—would have gone, accordlug to the particular law of the .State, to her mother, Mrs. McVicker.

r This lady has, if the testimony of the actor’s friends be of any value, hated Booth long and bitterly, and has by herenergetic manifestations of it, earned from him some degree of reciprocity. Poor Mrs. Booth’s final dislike to her faithful consort is ascribed directly to her disordered mind; It was, in fact, a symptom o( her disease. Boor Mrs. Booth had many talents, many estimable and noble qualities. Her life was, for several years, very unhappy; the least unhappy part of it being itsend. It was no fault of hers that she was not temperamentally adjusted to her liege. She helped him much and troubled him not a little. They suffered and enjoyed together: she enjoyed the more, aud he suffered the more. But it is all over now, and charity will let curtain upon the close of the domestic tragedy. Her death, attended by its antecedents, was sad, very sad; but it was the best way out of a melancholy complication that no amount of love,*no degree of devotion could ever have unraveled.