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Show THE ELDER BENNETT'S MARRIAGE The following account of the marriage of James Gordon Bennett the elder, written presumably by himself, and published in the Herald on June 1, 1840, will be read with interest at the present time. TO THE readers of the Herald-Declaration of Love-Caught at Last-Going to be Married-New Movement Civilization. I AM going to be married in a few days. The weather is beautiful-times are getting so good-the prospects of political and moral reform so suspicious, that I cannot resist the divine instinct of human nature any longer-so I am going to be married to one of the most splendid women in intellect, in heart, in soul, in property, in person, in manner, that I have yet been in the course of joy interesting pilgrimage through human life. ***I CAN not stop in my career, I must fulfill that awful journey which the Almighty Father has written against my name in the broad letters of life against the wall of Heaven. I must give the world a pattern of happy wedded life, with all the charities that spring from a nuptial love. In a few days I shall be married according to the holy rites of the most holy Christian church to one of the most remarkable, accomplished and beautiful young women of this age. She possesses a fortune. I sought and found a fortune-a large fortune. She has no Stonington shares, or Manhatten stock, but in purity and uprightness she is worth half a million of pure gold. Can any swindling bank show as much? In good sense and elegance another half a million-in soul, mind and beauty, millions on millions, equal to the whole specie of all the rotten banks in the world. Happily, the patronage of the public to the Herald is nearly $25,000 per annum, albeit equal to a President's salary, most property in the world's gold was never my object. Fame, public good, usefulness in my day and generation-the religious association of female excellence- the progress of true industry-these have been my dreams by night and my desires by day. IN THE new and holy condition into which I am about to enter, and to enter with the most reverential feeling as I would Heaven itself- I anticipate some signal changes in my feelings, in my views, in my purposes, in my pursuits. What they may be I know not-time alone can tell. My ardent desire has been through life to reach the highest order of human excellence by the shortest possible way. Associated night and day, in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poor, with a woman of this highest order of excellence, must produce some curious results in my heart and feelings and those results the future will develop in due time in the columns of the Herald. MEANTIME, I return my heartfelt thanks for the enthusiastic patronage of the public; both of Europe and of America. The holy estate of wedlock will only increase my desire to be still more useful. God Almighty bless you all - James Gordon Bennett. |
