Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1894 — Wrote a Death-Bed Repentance. [ARTICLE]

Wrote a Death-Bed Repentance.

In the June number of the Century Prof. H. H. Boyesen writer an interesting sketch of the mother of the Russiamnovelisty Tourgueneff. Her life was one long tempest of passion, filled with cruelty to her serfs and abuse of her children. Her constant occupation in her declining years was playing at solitaire. Though she was suffering from dropsy and consulted the most famous physicians, she blandly disregarded their dietic rules and followed her own sovereign whim. For a long time she ate nothing but grapes, and finally her diet consisted solely of ice cream. For entertainmept her daughter read aloud to her the latest French novels. Before her death, Nov. 6, 1850, she sent for her sons, who both hastened to her bedside. But only Nicholas found his mother alive. When Ivan arrived she had already expired. Before drawing her iast breath she scrawled these lines on a piece oi paper: “My mother, my children, forgive me! And thou, Lord, forgive me. too; for pride—that mortal sin— was always my cardinal sin.”