The article focuses on the friendship between Henry Bedinger and Alec Boteler, two young lawyers with families who shared a passion for art. Boteler had a special love for drawing and painting, which may have been influenced by his great-grandfather, Charles Willson Peale, who was a prominent portrait painter in early America. However, Boteler’s father did not approve of his artistic interest and discouraged him from pursuing it.
In college, Boteler’s passion for drawing showed in various unexpected ways, including an incident where he threw a farmer into the water to capture his expression of terror, which resulted in the farmer accidentally drowning. The story spread around campus and caused Boteler to become gloomy and morose until he met Helen Stockton, whom he later married.
Boteler and Bedinger formed a close friendship and frequently got together with their families. Bedinger, inspired by his recent readings of Robert Burns’ poetry, invited Boteler to his house for a night of revelry with the following limerick:
“My wife’s awa; my wife’s awa’,
Na mair she can me tease;
She’s gan til her father an’ mither an’ a’,
And I can do as I please.
So if you’re in for a night of joy,
And gin grat fun ye wad see,
Just don your plaidie my merry boy,
And o’er the meadow to me.
A wee bit room in eastern wing,
A ceiling so love and snug,
A cheerfu’ bleeze in the chimney neuk,
And ablains a bit of a jug.
A bit of jug wi’ the barley bree,
A jest and merry sang,
And twa, thra friends what helping me
To push the hours along.
The wind may roar an’ the rain may fa’,
My wife’s awa’, my wife’s awa’;
Na mair she can me tease,
She’s gan til her father an’ mither an’ a’,
An’ we can do as we please.”
Bedinger eventually left for Denmark with his family to become the country’s first ambassador, while Boteler took over his seat in Congress after a business calamity left him heavily indebted. Boteler created a cartoon of Charles Harper’s home and apothecary shop, adding the ominous words from Shakespeare’s Henry VI: “Heavy looks foretell some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue,” likely sensing the dark times ahead.
After serving for most of the 1850s, Bedinger returned home to his wife and children, who had brought back the custom of decorating a Christmas tree from Europe, which caught on after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria had one. Bedinger wrote numerous letters expressing his homesickness and longing to be back in America.
Posted by Jim Surkamp on 2015-03-26 12:49:23