Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/23

INTRODUCTION of his affection, but on his return the young man went first to Miss Wilbraham, who was a girl of twenty, obtained her consent to be his wife, and then reported himself to his family. Lady Derby died on 26th April 1876; her husband pre-deceased her in 1869.

Sainte-Beuve has said that a woman "quand elle est restée femme par les qualités essentielles," is, even after she is dead, "un peu notre contemporaine toujours." This statement seems especially to apply to the women whose lives I have here attempted to sketch, and I venture to think that their share in shaping the history of their country, through the great men whose companions they were, claims from the present generation a grateful recognition of their qualities of head and heart. Women are expecting in the future to play a much more prominent and important part in public life. Therefore it is perhaps a fitting moment to put on record how their sisters of an earlier epoch performed their allotted part on life's stage. E. L. xix