November 15, 1830

Alfred William Hunt, (November 15, 1830 to May 3, 1896) was an English painter, born in Liverpool and associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He left his position as Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and married Margaret Raine (1861).  She would gain some fame as a translator of the Brothers Grimm and her novels. Their daughter would go on to also write novels, and Violet Hunt played a Bohemian role in the cultural history of the next cenutry. Violet Hunt has her own post about her status as a cat-lover, but now our focus is on her parents.

If the picture Margaret Hunt draws in her novel That Other Person (1886), of a married couple, is a reflection of her own marriage that relation is quite lovely, and quite Victorian. Here is the description I noticed:

[He had a] clear eye ....when once the poor old man was roused from his work. It was such a proud face, and yet so full of gentleness and resignation. The lamplight shone on his wan temples, where the skin was so thin and transparent that the course of the veins could be clearly traced. ....Mrs. Treherne..... was sitting in a semi-dark corner knitting and nodding, and then waking with a start to wonder if her dear husband wanted anything. Not that she ventured to ask the question. He scarcely ever did want anything but the dimly felt pleasure *of her company. He ...[was like] a hunter [a horse] which can eat no food, rest in no stable, win no race, if it be parted from the cat which, having been born and bred in its stable, has won its love. Mrs. Treherne was the faithful and affectionate cat whose companionship was indispensable.

Meh, maybe not. Margaret Hunt's nom de plume was Averil Beaumont. Her husband's landscapes are quite impressive.