C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

1 The whole story is well told by a friend of ours who favored us with a glance at that chapter of his autobiography devoted to an account of his first year of enforced freedom from the engrossing cares of married life. Marrying very young a most beautiful and charming girl, who became the mother of his children, and the presiding divinity of the temple of home, where he worshipped, his heart never strayed, nor was hers ever alienated. Encountering trials enough, it is true, in the strife of life, but that life filled always with the sunshine of love; with far more than an average share of good fortune; thirty-seven years of such happiness as are seldom witnessed in succession, marked and rounded out a beautiful existence. All his affection was in his home; his heart was bound up in his wife and children. All that intellectual and social culture could do, had been done for them all. In every land where they traveled, and in every circle where they moved, they presented an exceptional instance of domestic happiness.

With a fondness for literature and science, and rare opportunities for their culture, they never impaired, in the faintest degree, his love as a father or a husband—he was an idolater of wife and children. But some very strange and unfortunate occurrences took place, reflecting no dishonor, or even discredit, but being simply a sheer misfortune. A visit to a distant relation was prolonged through the malign influence of other parties, into temporary abandonment at least, and it were a long, sad tale to tell.

His love had not been impaired, and in the utter desolation of his spirit, he was driven to the verge of madness. But summoning all the strength of his character, and all the pride of his manhood, he betook himself to his studies, and buried, as far as he could, every thought of the past, in exclusive devotion to his beloved pursuits.

After a long time the storm passed—the victory was achieved; and becoming once more master of his own mind and of his own time, the amount of work he performed, and its superb quality, became absolutely incredible. Having passed through sorrow without bringing any of the bitterness of it away with him, and having recovered his primitive health and strength, which had drooped for a while, he thus describes the position in which he found himself:

‘Personal Freedom.—No more annihilation of time in what I have at last discovered were but the harassing cares and frivolous occupations of married life. The sweet charities of domestic bliss have indeed fled; but in the large space they once filled, I find ample verge and room enough for sturdier, healthier and fresher plants to grow; plants which will return with the infallibility of eternal law, the fruit earned by diligence and generosity of culture.’

He was master of his own time, and of his own mind; and for the first time since his college days he says, ‘I had not thought of this, till E.'s last letter, in which I was told that I had been unqualifiedly discarded forever. Free? It was a new idea-so new that I did not altogether take it in: nor have I, yet. But it will gradually unfold itself, I think. Why!—only fancy how free I shall be—every one of the twenty-four hours of each day all my own: with none of the old calls to duty; no unwelcome people to meet; no little thing to “get;” no ungrateful gossip to hear; no irritating, hard, cold, or bitter remarks, lightly dropped, but sharper than needles! No forebodings about what may happen; no apprehensions of future poverty; above all, the consciousness that no whole day, nor hour, was absolutely at my own control! But to go to bed only when I feel like it, to get up only when I am ready: to go out, and come in, to read when, where, and what I please; and walk or ride, or talk, or be silent; above all, perhaps, to have my own hours for communion with my own soul, as everybody should have:—all this!—it seemed too much; more than I had deserved, more than I have even yet learned how to use. Oh!—is it possible that I can feel far enough away from the sight of the cruel coast where my lifeboat went to pieces? Will those rocks fade away clean out of view, as I take my staff, and swing my little bundle over my shoulder, for the new, solitary journey? I thank God this shipwreck need not prove an unmixed disaster. In the future, I may find it was all for the best. * * My regime of living now works easy in all things. Physically and intellectually I am master of my own mind, as well as of my own time. The amount of work, of all kinds, I have done during the last few months, is amazing, as I review it. Since my college days, I have had no such unrestricted freedom; nor was I ever conscious of acquiring or feeling so steadily increasing a momentum, moral and intellectual. I feel it on starting from a short halt; every interruption, voluntary or accidental, seems to invest the machine with added power. My soul, too, is fully at peace. I am conscious of a prevailing desire to act manfully, and loyally, and filially towards God; honestly with myself, and with justice and charity towards my fellow-men. I know how imperfectly I am doing all this,—no: I cannot know this: let me say I feel something of it. But I hear the dying thunders, still rolling in the distance—dark clouds still hang around the horizon, and the red lightning flashes out angrily from their rifted masses. If an unhappy dream wakes me in the deep night, a cold chill steals over me, and I lie for hours in the paralysis of a deathly prostration: but these periods occur less often, and now and then some of the loveliest visions come in my sleep. A few nights since, I dreamed of the young days of our forest love, with all its rapt embraces, and she was in all the dewy freshness of her beauty. We wandered for hours along the lake, and strolled under the wide branches of the old trees. Nor did I wake till the sun came through the window. How thankful I was! What gentle spirit painted that divine scene, and held the curtain with such steady and patient hands?—I shall know the artist, some day: I can more than half guess, now.’

‘Yes; now I can work. The few lares penates left, are all gathered around me; my tools are all laid out on my work-bench, and I have dedicated myself afresh to the sole object of existence—a higher life. Had it not been for a lifetime of intellectual culture, such a loss as I have gone through, would have driven me to madness.’

‘Such power to work, such breadth of comprehension of things possible to be done, such acquisition of strength in geometrical ratio, by unbroken continuity, of dedication to a grand thought—this is not often coincident with the distracting cares of married life.’