Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-07
From the Knickerbocker for February.l
THE WIVES or THE BARDS.
ny THOMAS BAILEY ALDRlcH.


''By tho grace Of God we are here assembled"
On examining the biographies of literary
men. the reader can not but be struck by the
obscure part which the rife plays in the
drama of such lives. Her history, as gen.
e-ai thing, is unwritten. The encyclopedias
record the date of her marriage, and some
times condescend TO say when she died.
Much more than this we are seldom per-
mitted to know. Her iege-lord neglected to
write her epitaph, however glad or sorry he
may have been 20 have the opportunity ofdo-
ing SO. ,,,
often escaped the celebrity which keeps their
husbands forever young, can not always be
pleasantly explained. In many cases they
have been inferior women, unable, through
lack ofintellectual sympathy, TO reach that
enchanted sphere wherein moves most that
is hoIiest and enduring of the literary man:
ifthey have loved, it has been with the heart
wholly, AID with the brain not at all. Poets,
It is said, require two-fold love-one for
themselves and one for their art. When the
fool in the play asks the lover how tall his
mistress is, the lover neatly replies: "Her
hight pEithee2 AS high as my heart ="
When an authors wife is also as high as his
brain, at is then truly that the intercourse
ofthe sexes becomes the most refined pleas
ure !" and, ten to one, she laughs and weeps
and is delicious forever in a novel, or dweus
with all graces, in the rhythm Of a lyric that
terpetuaily sweetens the lips of the world.
She go far fails in answering the require
meuts Of he- station who is shut by in
cspacity from her husbands demesne of
thought, Such unions are fire. side trage-
dies-the more tragic, inasnuch as the actors
are Souls rather than bodies the more hope
lees because the agony Of the play is purely
Intellectual.
poets, as a class, are sadly neglected group
ofIajies in proof of which | am cruelty bent
on Masking a Ilve poet Seur testimony. Ny
witness is Mr.. r. II. Stoddard, who has re-
Gently appeared as the editor of a volume Of
that peculiar kind of poetry in which he him
self excels as an author.
The fact is land it is rather pathetic fact
If you wish to think so, literary men have
been very chary in their praises of married
life-especiaily the poets, who are popularity
supposed 10 30 the legal guardians of the
Lind little boy with the bow and arrows.
In looking over Mr.. Stoddard's Loves and
HerOires of The Poets-the most faultless col
Lection of love. poetry in the laugusge-an
i--ratured person might smile at the meageT
1umber of poems which the poets have ad-
dressed TO their own wives. Even these few
peems with eight or ten exceptions lack the
flavOr snd felicity which characterize their
authors on other less laudable occasions
They are not real sparkling Champagne but
verT "Ftiil Catawha" If the editor had re-
stricted his selections to readable "Stanzas
Addressed to my Wife," he might have put
all his material 10 pocket-book. He would
have found few such noble verses as Bishop
Kings E1eouy. For those poets who have
made themselves famous by singing of Chloe
and Amaryllis, whom they did not marry,
are generally az mute as moulting robins
concerning Maria and Clementina, whom
they did marry. From this point of view
the lady. love appears to have been every
thing, and the vile nothing.
seThink you, if Laura had been Petrarchs wife,
He you'd have written soDnets all his life2"
Now, for my part, am cynical enough TO
believe that he would have written much
better sonnets, and may be an epic or two
by way of variety. 1t requires something
more terrible than q noble woman TO spoil
the verses Of a decent poet. One Of the
chief pleasures in contemplating the lives OF
the cd English singers, is to know that
some Of those master spirits were blessed, in
their rough pilgrimage, by gracious wives,
whom they loved, though they neither de-
dicated foliCs rCr always wrote hOwery po-
ems 20 them. Perhaps they held domestic
love too sacred 70 sing aboutit. At all events
they sal z but seldom, and then not always
eKcellently well.
In Mr. 'Stoddard's volume we have l2t
poets. OF these l26, sixty are married men
Ofthese sixty about thirty have sung any.
thing worth the singing. There may be
come slight error TO these figures, for l au
distinguished fer my horror of mathematics
but the statement is sufficiently correct fol
the occasion.
TIE limits assigned to magazine article
win not allow ne to discuss in detail the
ladies Of these poets. But what curious
history they would make How their stories
would involve kings, eourtiers, beggars, fools,
lhak 81
them we-e, what sspendthrifts, what sweet
tOpgued creatures, what scolds How some
Of them ruiaed their lords with no Other
charm than the crimson thread Of their lips
Itis odd that Disraeli, in his CdlGmitiss o.
Autkors, neglects, as / believe he does L
mention UOmaa. The shrews of literature
viii q minute account of "the life, suffering
a1d death" OF hen. pecked authors, woulC
make ,ong and comical chapter But |
lo9es-, though not 30 comical chapter nigh
be furnished by the pale ghosts Of neglected
wives. AS ! lean over my friends book
Wba: phaltoms from the dark night without
from old, nOssy English kirk-yards, hove
a6ozt me in the dim gas-lght Of my cham
Der, each whispering some strange tale {
cruelty and neglect, telling Of envalued love
iiress and patience and deYotionl
"QsIo,s .ss. .Sst f'uDd his earthly close
Ali you poor little women, some of you hay
Ieen sbamefully not taken care of
Dante WoVe such wreath Of laurels fC
Beatrice, that the beauty Of the FlOrentin
woman, with her blOOd-red dress, has stoO
the test Of 500 years. The wife Of the gloom
Tuscan Is the merest shadow beside her in
mortal rival. Howard, Earl OF Surrel
wraps TIE Lady Elizabeth Gerald in prett
name, and pens sentimental sOnnets TO hi
eye-broWs-just as if his own wife had 2
eye. blows, and very charming ones But
seems 20 have DO music left for his cousi
Lsdy Frances We're, to whom he was b
troihed in his boyhood. The elaborate s
Philip Sidney wasted his anapests an
dset5ls on q pair Of restless court hFe-fie
10 the neglect Of lovely woman, the pink
nRyse little hnger-nail was worth VINO