Mr. Garborg relates most charmingly how she
straightens out the tangles in her husband's plots, and unobtrusively
draws him back, when, as frequently happens, he has switched himself off
on a side-line and is unable to recover his bearings. And this occurs as
often in his conversation as in his manuscripts, which he never
despatches to the publisher without her revision. She helps him
condense. She knows just what to omit. Yet she does not pretend to be in
the least literary. Her proper department, in which she is also a
shining success, is the care of her children and the superintendence of
her household. She understands to perfection the art of economy and has
a keen practical sense, which makes her admirably competent in all the
more difficult situations in life. And he, feeling her competence and
his own deficiency, frankly leans on her. Hence a certain motherliness
on her part (most beautiful to behold) has tinged their relation; and on
his an admiring and affectionate dependence. Each prizes in the other
what he himself lacks; and the husband's genius loses none of its
brightness to the wife, because it is herself who trims the wick and
adjusts the reflectors which send its light abroad.
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