ere
apparently out of his sphere. "It was like cutting stones with a
razor," says one who knew him. "He was a visionary," says another,
"who always saw a pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow." This was a
kind of defect which, though it cost her dear, Mrs. Child, of all
persons, could most easily forgive. One great success he achieved:
that was in winning and keeping the heart of Mrs. Child. Their married
life seems to have been one long honeymoon. "I always depended," she
says, "upon his richly stored mind, which was able and ready to
furnish needed information on any subject. He was my walking
dictionary of many languages, and my universal encyclopedia. In his
old age, he was as affectionate and devoted as when the lover of my
youth; nay, he manifested even more tenderness. He was often singing,

'There's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's _old_ dream.'

Very often, when he passed me, he would lay his hand softly on my head
and murmur 'Carum Caput.'... He never would see anything but the
bright side of my character. He always insisted upon thinking that
whatever I said was the wisest and whatever I did was the best."

In the anti-slavery conflict, Mr. Child's name was among the earliest,
and at the beginning of the controversy, few were more prominent. In
1832, he published in Boston a series of articles upon slavery and the
slave-trade; in 1836, another series upon the same subject, in
Philadelphia; in 1837, an elaborate memoir upon the subject for an
anti-slavery society in France, and an able article in a _London
Review_. It is said that the speeches of John Quincy Adams in Congress
were greatly indebted to the writings of Mr. Child, both for facts and
arguments.

Such, briefly, is the man with whom Mrs. Child is to spend forty-five
years of her useful and happy life. In 1829, the year after her
marriage, she put her twelve months of experience and reflection into
a book entitled, "The Frugal Housewife." "No false pride," she says,
"or foolish ambition to appear as well as others, should induce a
person to live a cent beyond the income of which he is assured." "We
shall never be free from embarrassment until we cease to be ashamed of
industry and economy." "The earlier children are taught to turn their
faculties to some account the better for them and for their parents."
"A child of six years is old enough to be made useful and should be
taught to consider every day lost in which some little th